In 1000 AD, held prisoner by a Norse chieftain, a fearless mute warrior, aided by a boy slave, kills his captors and then falls in with a group of Vikings seeking a holy land which begets a journey into the heart of darkness.
This is “Valhalla Rising,” the amazing new film by Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn; a Viking epic starring the always-captivating Mads Mikkelsen.
How cinephiles today won’t love this film is inexplicable, but the reading by this guy (who seemingly has the worst taste on the web) is brutal and completely off the mark.
Our review of the film from TIFF 2009 called the film akin to Terrence Malick making a silent horror movie or the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky making a lovechild descent into madness B-movie with early John Carpenter and that’s gloriously on the mark as the film is savage, fierce, eerie and unsettling.
While the trailer for ‘Valhalla’ had plenty of visceral axe-swinging bad-assery, the film is the polar opposite of Refn’s celebrated 2009 picture “Bronson” — it’s a slow-moving, meditative and haunting picture (which is what that other yokel can’t appreciate to save his life). It might be a hard sell for plebeian audiences, but cineastes should revel in the stunning awe this mesmerizing picture generally delivers. “Valhalla Rising” hits theaters July 16 and should be OnDemand any day now if you can’t wait.