Tchoutoye

Valentyn Vasyanovytch's films about the conflict that broke out in Ukraine in 2014 are bleak. With his previous film Atlantis (2019) Vasyanovytch gained international acclaim by balancing the bleakness with scenes of great visual poetry. On account of that film's quality I had high expectations for Vidblysk (Reflection).

Sadly, that visual poetry is almost entirely lacking. All that remains is bleakness. Vasyanovytch is known for his long, static shots. Here such shots linger on torture scenes, which will make many viewers uncomfortable.

Morgues are a common feature in Vasyanovytch's films, but his cold, clinical style makes every indoor location resemble one, including living rooms, which are invariably drab gray.

The film's biggest flaw is that the protagonists are nearly always filmed with long shots, This, combined with a very superficial characterization, make it impossible for the viewer to engage with them emotionally. So no matter how bleak the film became, the result left me rather cold.

There are one or two scenes where an attempt is made to provide meaningful depth, but the film's overall lack of inspiration makes them fall flat.

I loved Robert Eggers' previous film The Lighthouse, so I was excited about the prospect of this. Alas, it does not deliver. Like so many talented directors before him, Eggers succumbed to the need to dumb himself down in his quest for the multiplex.

This is basically a very run-of-the-mill revenge story fleshed out with stylishly trippy scenes of pagan rituals. Admittedly, I enjoyed the latter, but these individual scenes could not save the film from its major flaws. The trapping of the revenge theme is that it is, in itself, so one dimensional. This doesn't have to be a problem when it is balanced out with other themes, and proper attention is given to reflection and character development. But The Northman has none of that. It is gore, trippy pagan ritual, gore, trippy ritual, gore, ritual, gore, gore, ritual, gore... rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.

Add to that, rather clichéd dialogue that becomes tediously repetitive, and the tonal bombast of a coked-up metal band that seeks to impress with the volume dialed up to 11 in its opening chords already.

If The Northman didn't take itself damn so seriously, it could have made for a promising parody of the sword and sandal epic.

Shame.

Everything that is admirable about this film has to do with its design: exquisite sets, good score and stylish cinematography.

I didn't care much for the cast (regardless of their ethnicity), and projecting contemporary sensibilities onto period dramas always rubs me the wrong way. However the main turn off was the film's very narrow tonal range. There are a few individual scenes here and there that work for their ability to evoke an otherworldly atmosphere. But its slow-paced, po-faced solemnity throughout, devoid of any counterpoint, makes The Green Knight a very stodgy film that fails to engage. It takes itself far too seriously.