Review of Valhalla Rising (2009) by Renee H — 06 Jan 2011

I'm a firm believer that the Viking movie is a sleeping giant of a sub-genre, but for now we get precious few of them. That said, if Nicolas Winding Refn's VALHALLA RISING was the last Viking film we ever got, I would be perfectly satisfied. VALHALLA RISING is a slow-burning tale of One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen), a mute embodiment of violence and brutality whose only purpose is to fight prisoners to the death for his pagan masters. Plagued with apocalyptic visions of the future, One-Eye escapes his captors and comes across Christian Vikings on a crusade to the Holy Land. He joins them, but their ship, enshrouded by a thick fog, lands somewhere else, somewhere Hellish and alien.

VALHALLA RISING isn't a movie about Vikings or so-called conquest, so much as it is a movie about Hell, as it feels like that is where the movie descends to a la APOCALYPSE NOW. What I value most in certain types of film is atmosphere, a thick sense of place, and VALHALLA RISING is easily the most atmospheric film of 2010, thanks in no small part to the moody soundtrack by Peter Kyed and (no joke) Peter Peter, the best marriage of audio and video all year, even trumping Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score for THE SOCIAL NETWORK. The sloping hills, foreboding clouds, and One-Eye's gaze do the rest. The result is a feeling of dread so heavy you can cut it. And there's plenty of time to feel it, while it's running time is just over ninety minutes, VALHALLA RISING is a slow burn that takes its time and breathes, letting you soak in the vibe, the pace gives it the feeling that the movie is far longer than it actually is, but in this case that's a good thing.

This film has drawn comparisons to the work of Werner Herzog and Terence Malick, and while the descent into madness and the way the movie dwells in nature indeed recall their films, Refn's film works on its own demonic level, while poetic, it's not kind like Malick's work, nor is it chaotic like Herzog. The film has more in common with Andrei Tarkovsky's work, as the film's slow descent recalls films like STALKER, indeed Refn's film "sculpts in time." But Refn isn't tipping the hat or paying homage to any of these men, VALHALLA RISING makes no effort to be like anything that has come before. It is an original creation, and one of the best films of 2010.