He made this great film about Charles Bronson, the UK's infamous career prisoner. It's strange but in tackling a real person's life on film, he made this very intangible world. I mean Charles Bronson, isn't someone with the greatest grip on reality and that's part of what it was but you felt while watching, the action would move like slow, slow motion then-BANG! something inexorable would happen and change atmosphere in the film. I really have no interest in Vikings or Celtish historical exercises but if Refn can do what he did to the Biopic- i'm curious to see what he'll do with this.
Before i start, i have to say this film would have been awesome if it had Peter Mullan in it because he has such a past of methodical Scottish aggressors.
Anyway, that thing said about the 'slow moving action then-BANG!' - that's totally what happening here as well. It's never boring but based on the poster art or the name or your preconceptions about Celts or maybe you thought, it might be like a pound-shop Braveheart or Spartacus but it's really not quite... methodical, more... ethereal than you might think. It kinda make me think, 'if this had a British Metal soundtrack like Maiden, definately Venom, it wouldn't be a too much of a stretch.' - in the way, that would be kinda reminiscent of the Robert Plant fantasy sequences of Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same- (FFWD to 4mins in)
But really i'm thinking something closer to this (musically) ...
No, while watching Valhalla Rising, you get the feeling it's just about the pick-up momentum, it's just about to become this sudden-cut'n'slash fast-paced dealy but after the first hour, you realise that's not coming but that's not a bad thing, every 10mins there's a bit of the ol' sudden ultraviolence.
Mads Mikkelsen plays Det. Sgt. John Valhalla-(LOOLZ)- No, he's plays the laconic 'One-Eye', so called because presumably because someone superglued someone's 'ballskin' across his one eye.'Testes?' He sure is!! He starts off as his bare-knuckle boxer of sorts for his Celtish gangster masters and we see early on, he's capable of an animalistic sorta killing ability, literally ripping assailants apart.
And after he escapes his masters (Guess how?...), he then gets with some Christians who are off on a... voyage?
That pretty much what's going on here. If a plot or story are important to you, this won't be for you but i'm of the opinion, plots and story hold back some films.I liked this film, cos you can tell they spent like £60 to make it on the side of the Scottish Highlands and it's grimy, rough'n'readyness, lends to a great charm for it.
It's kinda superfluous to mention DVD extras but it wasn't until i watched the making-of, I realised that SPOILER the end of this film, takes place in America!!! meaning they took a viking-style long-ship there from Scotland, which is a weird fantasy turn but i'm not mad at it.
It's interesting because Valhalla Rising and this year's much lauded, Monsters were both made by Vertigo Films. Both rely on beautiful picturesque vistas, (largely) unknown actors, digital-style filming- but i didn't like Monsters at all. The difference I think was Valhalla Rising has a cognizant monster throughout- Monsters threatens monsters only to disappoint at the end.
I watched Valhalla Rising (2009) on Blu-Ray via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Twinky (1970) - (OMGZZZ - I found this film last night, and it got bumped up to the top of the list...)
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