THE NORTHMAN

 Alexander Skarsgard     Nicole Kidman     Claes Bang     Ethan Hawke

Anya Taylor Joy     Willem Dafoe     Bjork     Gustav Lindt

            Oh, those Vikings!  They’re a brutal lot, and Director Robert Eggers with his co-writer Sjon (a poet and novelist as well as screenwriter) have presented us with an extraordinary drama that gets into all kinds of substantive issues of the ages—war (of course!); vengeance; family belonging, loyalty, and entanglements (including incestual); romance; and more—all against the backdrop of sweeping countryside vistas, blood, and gore.

            We get a brief picture of a happy royal family—King Aurvandil (Hawke), Queen Gudrun (Kidman), and Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak the younger, Skarsgard as the older), maybe with some raising of eyebrows, but with the King making his wife and son mindful of the burden of royalty.  He starts training Amleth bigtime in warrior ways, which includes dog-type faceoffs, and making him promise he will avenge his father’s death if it comes to that.  We’re told that honor is above all the highest virtue.

            The tale goes on, pitching the viewer into the 895 A.D. Vikings world through not only the plot, but also expert cinematography (James Blaschke), production design (Craig Lathrop), music (Robin Carolan, Sebastian Gainsborough), and special effects (too many to mention) as well.  The plot transports you along making you feel as if you are there, thanks to that and all the crafts supporting it.

            Quotable quotes are sprinkled about liberally, such as, “You have the strength to break men’s bones; I have the cunning to break men’s minds” and “My earth magic will stoke the flames of your sword”, both spoken by the fetching Olga to Amleth.  Still, some metaphorical references are humorous such as the cleverly inserted “kiss my butt” action.

            The most gripping part comes when Prince Amleth is confronted with elements of the prophecy told to him as a child that at some point, he will have to make a choice between the protection of loved ones and honoring a promise.  

            This is not only a visually beautiful film, it taps into fundamental beliefs we all have about family, war, and conscience, elevating it above your regular adventure film by allowing us to experience some of those real dilemmas that many people must face even now as in the past.  Some are publicly heroic, but some are simply the everyday experience of a reality a person did not plan to encounter.

            This is an exquisitely conceived film that tells a story for the ages.

 

If you like adventure with intelligence and cleverness and can stand the gore, go to this movie.  You will be rewarded.

 

Grade:  A                              By Donna R. Copeland

THE WITCH

Anya Taylor-Joy     Ralph Ineson     Kate Dickie     Harvey Scrimshaw     Ellie Grainger     lucas Dawson

             The Witch is a horror film par excellence.  Beginning with the dirge-like cello music that gradually transitions into dissonant screeching of the violins, the opening scenes are ones of dispute in which a family is essentially driven from a shared plantation sometime in the 1600s in New England.  They go willingly, holding to their principles, and have smugly pleased faces when they come upon what will be their own place, a verdant field next to a forest with a stream.  And suddenly a house and barn, crops, and domestic animals appear, and it seems that all will be well.

      William (Ineson) and Kate (Dickie) have five children, Thomasin (Taylor-Joy), Caleb (Scrimshaw), Mercy (Grainger), Jonas (Dawson), and the baby Sam.  They all seem to pitch in with chores, although Mercy and Jonas (twins) clearly favor playing, dancing, singing, and horseplay to work.  Both Thomasin and Caleb are serious, thoughtful children who take their parents’ religion seriously.  It’s a fundamentalist type of belief, in which they must always be praying to have their sins forgiven.  Guilt is rife in the parents who frequently attribute negative occurrences to God’s testing their faith and punishing them for sins, and the two older children have internalized these lessons all too well.

       The forest has a mystical, ghostly appearance to the family, especially to the mother, but of course it is seductive, and several family members cannot withstand its temptation.  This is especially poignant, since Sam suddenly disappears one day, never to be seen again, and it is assumed that a “wolf” has absconded with him.  This is torture for the parents who believe that he might not have gone to heaven.  Perhaps they thought he ought to have had “last rites” before he died, but I’m not sure.  They don’t even know if he’s dead or not.

       Sam’s disappearance is only the first of many progressively horrible experiences the family will endure.  The film, written and directed by Robert Eggers, depicts so eerily well the gradual disintegration of minds into psychosis.  Accusations of sin and witchery abound, particularly focused upon Thomasin.  After this relatively long (but very good) set-up of family dynamics, really strange and horrifying things transpire, culminating in a truly fantastic scene.  Eggers has done an admirable job in managing the tension between reality and fantasy/metaphor, which keeps the viewer transfixed, wondering how it will all turn out, but—until the very end—it all holds together in the realm of plausibility (the place where most horror films lose me).  The horror and mystery here lies more in psychological phenomena than in material destruction—although that’s also present.  Eggers well deserves his award as Best Director at Sundance in 2015.

       The main actors are gifted (and presumably well directed) in playing their roles, with Ineson as the father looking like a Jesus figure, Dickie as the mother a long-suffering wife, and Taylor-Joy as a young woman whose fertile imagination gets her into trouble and makes her the target of accusations.  Scrimshaw, Grainger and Dawson are naturals in their roles as younger siblings trying to understand the world around them.  Mark Korven’s music is uncanny in leading the viewer into scene after scene,  emotionally.

One of the best in the horror genre.

Grade:  A-           By Donna R. Copeland