The Northman (2022) – A Movie Review

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The Northman is a retelling of the Amleth story from Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus.  This is the story that forms the basis of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

The story begins when Amleth is an adolescent.  His father King Aurvandill (played unrecognizably by Ethan Hawke) has just returned from a Viking raid.  He was wounded badly and tells his Queen Gudrún (played by Nicole Kidman) that he’s decided it’s time to initiate Amleth into the rituals associated with being king.  The father and son participate in a rite that involves them howling like wolves and lapping food off a plate on the floor of an underground temple.  During the ceremony Amleth has a vision of the chain of life from generation to generation and he swears to avenge any attack on his family.

Immediately afterward, his father is set upon and murdered by his bastard half-brother Fjölnir and his followers.  Amleth barely escapes with his life but as he rows away from his island home, he swears to revenge his father and rescue his mother who has been seized by his uncle.  He swears to kill Fjölnir.

Next, we see Amleth years later.  He’s a grown man who has become a berserker who participates in Viking raids for some chieftain.  He is fierce beyond the bounds of his comrades and he cuts through his enemies like a knife through butter.  While involved in the sack of a Slav settlement he meets a priestess in the local temple and learns that his fate is still determined by the vengeance he has sworn against his uncle.  She tells him that his fate is to kill Fjölnir surrounded by a lake of fire.

Back in Scandinavia he learns that his uncle was dispossessed of his island kingdom by the King of Denmark.  Fjölnir has fled to Iceland and is now a petty chieftain with just a few retainers and using a small slave force to raise sheep.  Amleth decides to disguise himself as a slave and work on Fjölnir’s farm in order to have his revenge and free his mother.  During his voyage to Iceland, he meets a Slav prisoner named Olga to whom he is attracted.  The two slaves form a bond and when Amleth manages to rise in the slave ranks to foreman Olga is given to him as his woman.  The two plot Amleth’s revenge and their escape.

Now Amleth meets another seer who tells him the details of his fate.  He must go to the gates of Hel and there recover the magical sword Draugr.  Accomplishing this feat, he prepares his revenge.  Under cover of darkness, he kills some of Fjölnir’s men and nails their bodies to a cabin wall.  Using a drug that Olga prepares for him he poisons the garrison and they become confused and slay each other during the night.  While this is going on Amleth goes to Fjölnir’s house to kill him but instead meets Gudrún.  He reveals his identity and tells her he is there to kill Fjölnir and free her.  But she laughs and tells him that she planned his father’s murder because she was a slave and never loved Aurvandill.  Amleth is horrified and kills Fjölnir’s son Thorir and cuts out his heart.

Fjölnir threatens to kill Olga and Amleth exchanges himself for her.  While Fjölnir performs his son’s funeral Amleth is freed from his captivity by ravens (Odin’s messengers).  Then Olga carries him away on a horse to the coast.  There he finds out that she is pregnant with his children (twins).  They plan to escape to the Orkneys where Amleth has kin.  They embark on a ship but as they’re sailing away Amleth has a vision of his fate.  He knows that Olga will give birth to his son and daughter who will carry on his line.  But he knows that his fate is to fulfill his oath.  He jumps from the ship and swims back to shore.

Amleth kills the retainers and sets the slaves free to burn down the farm.  He heads for Fjölnir’s house but finds Gudrún.  He does not intend to kill her but she attacks him with a sword and finally he stabs her.  Then her young son attacks Amleth with a knife and finally Amleth kills him.  At this point Fjölnir arrives and tells Amleth to meet him at the Gates of Hel to settle things.  Then he carries away his wife and son for burial.

Badly wounded by the wounds he’s already gotten Amleth fights Fjölnir amid the flowing lava of the volcano.  As Amleth is weakening he gathers his strength for one last flurry.  As Fjölnir buries his blade in Amleth’s chest he beheads his uncle.  And as Amleth is dying he has a vision of Olga telling him that his children are safe and to relax into his fate.  He does so and we see him carried by a Valkyrie to Valhalla.

Wow.  That’s a lot.  Okay, so this is an unusual movie.  It’s a mixed bag.  The intent is to recreate the frame of reference of a Viking prince of the ninth century.  In some ways this seems successful.  But as a movie the dramatic content is difficult for a modern audience to accept.  Seeing a man and a boy howling like wolves seems bizarre, almost silly.  But I can see how this might be a way to convey the berserker mindset.  The fighting scenes are well done.  Despite the unusual content of the plot, I thought the main characters were very well acted.  But I had a hard time empathizing with any of the characters.  Their worldview was so far from my reality that I just couldn’t believe in it. This being said I enjoyed the movie.  It was grim and bizarre but I saw what they were trying to do and I enjoyed the experience of trying to believe in that frame of reference.  I can’t recommend this movie to anyone who doesn’t think this description is interesting.  It’s not a normal movie.  Probably people interested in Viking history are the primary audience.  Your milage may vary.

02OCT2022 – Quote of the Day

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History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the Origin of Species with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them.

Thomas Henry Huxley

Cold Thoughts

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The weather has turned cold.  There was some sun today but temperatures were in the fifties.  We got out for a walk and there was enough to do around the house but for some reason I couldn’t get a handle on anything interesting in the news.  I guess things will have to percolate for a while.

I watched an old John Barrymore movie called Counsellor at Law.  It was really pretty good.  I hadn’t seen it for a few years and I even forgot the ending.  It had all the stock characters for a movie taking place in 1930s Manhattan.  And it occurred to me that the despised European immigrants that were the downtrodden denizens of the criminal courts in this movie have moved three generations later to the position of despised oppressors of the new downtrodden.

But the funny part is they did this without ever being rich or powerful in between.  Our parents and grandparents struggled to become good Americans in the hope that their descendants would get to live in the working and middle classes by following the rules and believing in the civic nationalism that said that a man was judged by his deeds and not his pedigree.

And now we are told that all that was a mistake.  Everything they did and we believed in was wrong.  All that talk about freedoms and inalienable rights was just a dodge.  It turns out that the Communists and the Fascists were right.  Power comes from the barrel of a gun.  We have no more right to freedom and happiness here than we did back in the old country where some patron or mafioso decided who got to work and who got to starve.  In fact, at least back in the old country there was some sense of loyalty even toward the peasants by those in charge.

So, we’re all expendable now.  Just a bunch of spare parts that are no longer needed in the new American economy.  A giant game of musical chairs where they turn off the music and there’s no place left for you.  It seems to me this explains why the Latinos are starting to gravitate toward the Republican party.  They’re basically the new version of the southern Europeans of a hundred years ago.  They came here expecting to work their way up and now they’re seeing the same dead end.  And they’re figuring out that the Democrats aren’t the party that helps families.  They’re the party of trans-gender indoctrination for their kids and of working women with no time for raising families.

I was reading Putin’s speech about the absorption of the Donbass regions into Russia.  It was very long and had a lot about Russian history and the fall of the Soviet Union.  But there was also a lot about the West.

I’ve copied some sections that I found interesting:

“In fact, they spit on the natural right of billions of people, most of humanity, to freedom and justice, to determine their own future on their own. Now they have completely moved to a radical denial of moral norms, religion, and family.

Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. I now want to return to what I said, I want to address all the citizens of the country – not only to those colleagues who are in the hall – to all the citizens of Russia: do we want to have, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of mom and dad there was “parent number one”, “number two”, “number three” – are they completely crazy already there? Do we really want perversions that lead to degradation and extinction to be imposed on children in our schools from the primary grades? To be drummed into them that there are supposedly other genders besides women and men, and to be offered a sex change operation? Do we want all this for our country and our children? For us, all this is unacceptable, we have a different, our own future.

I repeat, the dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves. This is a challenge for everyone. Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquires the features of a “reverse religion” – outright Satanism. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says: By their fruits you will know them. And these poisonous fruits are already obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including for many people and in the West itself.

The world has entered a period of revolutionary transformations, they are of a fundamental nature. New development centers are being formed, they represent the majority – the majority! – of the world community and are ready not only to declare their interests, but also to protect them, and see multipolarity as an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means to gain true freedom, a historical perspective, their right to independent, creative, original development, to a harmonious process.

All over the world, including in Europe and the United States, as I said, we have many like-minded people, and we feel, we see their support. A liberation, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is already developing within the most diverse countries and societies. His subjectivity will only grow. It is this force that will determine the future geopolitical reality.”

Now I have no illusions about Vladimir Putin.  He is a cold-blooded killer.  He will use whatever means he needs to achieve his goals.  He was the architect of the Second Chechen War, a brutal conflict.  He is a Russian partisan.  He has no love for America.  And yet most of what I copied above from his speech is demonstrably true.  Our government is erasing normalcy from our society and substituting a sick twisted anti-human creed.  The family is denigrated and mocked.  Freedom is being erased as a hate crime.  Prosperity for most people is being outlawed.  Even Vlad the Impaler can point to us and name our sins.  They’re that mortally clear.

It’s a cold, kind of bleak day, but I found illumination in an old black and white movie and the words of a modern-day autocrat.  The United States has abandoned the principles that made it great.  It has broken faith with the people who fought for it and believed in it.  It remains to be seen if it can be prodded back on the high road again.  But at least I found a little clarity.

The Great Man (1956) – A Movie Review

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Jose Ferrer directs and stars in this drama about the manufactured quality of mass media celebrity.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Jose Ferrer plays Joe Harris, a reporter who covers the entertainment beat for a local New York City newspaper, radio and television network.  When Herb Fuller, the network’s leading broadcaster dies in an automobile accident Harris is dragged into the story to provide a reverential eulogy of the beloved broadcaster during the extended network coverage of his funeral.

Dean Jagger plays Philip Carleton the head of the network.  Carleton dangles Fuller’s vacant network shows in front of Harris as an incentive for him to dazzle the audience with a masterful hagiography of “the great man.”  Sid Moore (played by Keenan Wynn) was Fuller’s producer and he’s responsible for lining up Fuller’s associates for Harris to interview in the few days left before the broadcast.  But aware that Harris is being groomed for Fuller’s old spot Moore is suspicious of Harris’s motives, surly toward him and quickly berates Harris for overstepping his place in the network hierarchy.

As Harris begins interviewing people, he realizes that there is an inverse relationship between how well people knew Fuller and how well they liked him.  People who only knew him from his broadcasts revered him as a good man and as almost a member of the family.  But the people who knew him most intimately revealed him to be an awful human being.  He was an abusive alcoholic.  His wife only stayed married to him to avoid scandal.  He was an indiscriminate womanizer who tossed away girls as soon as he became tired of them but expected them to always be available to him if he was bored or lonely.

His first job in radio was for a small radio station in Worcester Massachusetts owned by a religious man named Paul Beaseley (played by Ed Wynn) who was hoodwinked by Fuller’s incredible eloquence about his supposed spirituality.  Eventually he revealed himself to Beasley as a completely phony opportunist who preyed on people’s better natures.  But Harris also discovers that Fuller was a powerfully gifted writer and actor whose powers of persuasion and charm could win over any audience that didn’t happen to know him personally.

In one of the most powerful scenes Harris listens to one of Fuller’s most masterful broadcasts.  Ostensibly Fuller was in a forward line battleground at the German front in World War II and he was reporting on the American soldiers wounded and dying.  And he was describing an American soldier on a rude operating table in a barn having his leg amputated.  Fuller is describing the need for blood for these wounded men and starts berating, practically shouting at the American public for not immediately beating a path to their local hospital to donate blood for the cause.

Harris is powerfully moved by this recording and thinks he finally sees a humanity in Fuller.  But later on, Moore tells him the truth.  Fuller never got out to the battlefields.  He spent the trip in a drunken debauch in Paris where he was arrested in a brothel.  Moore went himself to the front to get the recordings and Fuller merely recorded his monologue over that background later on.

While this is going on Carleton reveals to Harris that there is corporate intrigue that involves forcing Moore away from the future of the shows that Harris may be given.  Harris is disgusted with both Carleton and Moore and almost everyone else he’s come in contact with on this story.

Finally, the night of the broadcast Harris is preparing to give the eulogy along with all the glowing tributes he’s recorded from those that didn’t really know Fuller or who would benefit from maintaining the myth about him.  But he stops.  Unable to stomach the lies, he tells the audience the truth.  He begins to relate the facts that he has discovered about the real Herb Fuller.  Back in the executive office Moore and Carleton are listening to the broadcast.  When Harris begins spilling the beans, Moore calls up the control room to cut Harris off.  But Carleton stops him.  Harris is about to become a symbol of crusading integrity and the network can utilize that to jumpstart their new star reporter’s career.  Carleton knows that advertising time can be sold with Fuller as either a sinner or a saint.  The story will come out.

I had never seen this movie before.  I’m glad I have.  This is a very well-made drama.  Jose Ferrer is a very good actor.  It seems he’s a pretty good director too.  The story is intriguing and the cast is full of good performances.  The one that stands out for me is Ed Wynn as the New England radio station owner.  His small-town sincerity is such a contrast to the cynicism and phoniness of the New York media crowd that it is almost shocking.  When we read the first broadcast that Fuller wrote for him and measure it against the values that are on display from the rest of the characters, we can feel Harris’s embarrassment at having treated this good-hearted man with faint mockery at his provincial manner.  Like him, maybe we feel a twinge of remorse that our lives have become coarsened too.  We feel a sadness that the world is really more Fuller’s world and not the better place it should be.

Anyway, I recommend this movie.  It has a good story to tell and it does it well.