'Valhalla Rising' (English, Historic Action Adventure, 2010)
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson
Set in 10,000 AD, Valhalla Rising tells the story of a mute Nordic warrior named One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen), who, along with a slave boy named Are (Maarten Stevenson), embarks on a perilous journey with a group of Christian Vikings, on their way to Jerusalem to fight the Crusades. The travellers are blindsided by a hellish fog, which eventually leads them to lose their minds and question the existence of God.
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher trilogy), the film is a studied look at existentialism and the true nature of man. With minimal dialogue and a weak plot, the film is held together by hallucinogenic violence that flows like poetry in motion.
The cinematography by Morten Søborg literally recreates hell on Earth. Here are three reasons why you need to catch the film when it releases:
● Refn has revealed in interviews that the film was inspired by Escape From New York, which he saw as a child.
● He has admitted that he got the idea of breaking the film into chapters from Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, '2001: A Space Odyssey'.
● He describes this film as a ‘‘science fiction movie, without the science.”