First the screen is black. The message appears: In the beginning, there was only Man and Nature. Then the men with the Cross drove the heathen to the edges of the Earth! There is a sudden blast of electronic music while the title Valhalla Rising appears.
I guess at one time, someone saw a point to this movie, as Director Nicolas Winding Refn and Producer Karen M. Smyth acquired a script of sorts, assembled actors, and arranged costumes; the film is currently enjoying a very limited art-house release through IFC Films in midtown Manhattan. Those who like their movies pure should be aware that I include various Spoilers to what plot there is.
Anyone looking for an intelligent “Pagan/Christian period of conflict” movie along the lines of Agora is not going to find it here; what they will find is a lot of weighty art-film self-importance and a good bit of torture-porn violence (if you are not comfortable with the graphic bashing out of brains, disemboweling, beheading, and clubbing- this film is not for you).
The first section, titled “Wrath” (this is the type of film that arrives divided into sections, each with a thematic title), takes place high in the craggy, rocky wilds of Scotland. (The scenery throughout the film is amazing.) Pagan guys in cloaks, with lots of tattoos, stand around and stare- and stare- and stare some more. (This is a movie with lots of standing around, staring, sometimes in extreme close-up.) One Pagan guy speaks.
“Bastards! That what the followers of the White Christ are! Bastards! They eat their own God- eat his flesh and drink his blood! Abominable! They hate us and want us dead. Pray to the Gods to protect you- We have many Gods; they have only one.”
Not only do they have many Gods- they also have a captive, whom they keep caged and chained, amusing themselves by tethering him to a stake and assaulting him in multiple numbers. A Boy stares and stares and stares.
This captive is called “One-Eye” (as he has only one eye); he never speaks, but stares and stares and stares- until he slips out of his restraints, attacks and kills his captors, and takes off walking- with the Boy scrambling behind. End section 1.
Section 2: “Silent Warrior.” One-Eye and the Boy come across a scene of looting and burning. Here are Vikings- but Christian Vikings. As their leader explains, “We are God’s own soldiers, going to Jerusalem to recover the Holy Land, where riches and honor await. Your sins will be absolved if you go to Jerusalem. Consider your soul- more than flesh and blood, the real pain is in your soul.” One-Eye decides to accompany them; the Boy scrambles after.
In Section 3: ”Men of God,” the Christian Vikings, One-Eye, and the Boy are all in a longboat, sailing for Jerusalem. A great mist has arisen; they are sailing blind. One of the men asks One-Eye, “Did you send this mist to curse us?” One-Eye stares and stares and stares. Everyone stares. Sometimes they stare from different angles. Finally the leader starts to pray. “This ship is yours, O Lord; these men are yours. These swords are yours, O Lord. Join your Hand with ours; guide us to your Kingdom, to protect your Lands.”
Section IV: “the Holy Land.” The Vikings land in what looks like North America. Ravishing shots of piny coasts. The Vikings come ashore. They discover Native American burials. They wander around and look at stuff. The leader raises his sword as if it were a Cross. “God brought us out of the mist to claim this land in His Name! We raise the Cross and bring the Sword, that the Heathens might be cleansed of sin in the new Jerusalem!”
In the final section, “Sacrifice,” One-Eye starts to climb a mountain. Other men (and the Boy) follow him. The Viking leader stabs to death his “life-long friend” for wanting to climb the mountain with One-Eye. “Only men of faith deserve to share in the riches of my new Jerusalem!” He begins to plan building “Crosses up and down the river to guide our brothers when they join us; I will build cities that will last for one thousand years!”
On the top of the mountain, One-Eye is silhouetted against the sunlight; the camera is shooting up at him. One of the guys with him asks, “Why have we gone through all this?” One-Eye smiles.
Down at the river, the Christian Viking is wading in the water, holding his sword like a Cross. Thwap! Thwap! Arrows fell him; he falls into the water, to float like the Crucified.
Now One-Eye is by the shore. He is happy; he smiles. He turns. A bunch of Natives are standing behind him. One-Eye falls serenely to his knees, as the Natives move in to club him to death.
The credits, divided neatly into “The Pagans,” “The Christian Vikings,” and “the Indians,” roll across the screen.
As near as I can figure, One-Eye is meant to represent Odinn, and the film is intended to be a parable about Odinn’s wandering the earth- hence his “sacrifice” at the end and his “deification” in the mountain sequence. (Such serenity as is found in this film is discovered in the natural beauty of the North American coasts.) Other than that- it is a movie with tons of fantastic landscape-shots; some extremely brutal violence; and a lot of shots of men standing around staring at stuff. Neither the Christians nor the Pagans seem very nice, although the Pagans are far more heavily tattooed. Vadim Rizov, in The Village Voice (July 14-20, 2010, “Tracking Shots,” p. 46), calls this “full-on portentous allegory,” “maddeningly ponderous,” with One-Eye martyred as an “alternate pagan Christ, while hypocritical Christians proselytize.” “Frequently dull and stupidly obvious,” it does clarify, as the “metal guitars get louder and louder, the synergy between Viking imagery and the pagan-obsessed metal freaks it spawned.”
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