Left Field Cinema

The Director: 1996 saw the beginning of Nicholas Winding Refn’s feature film career with the visceral, kinetic and uncompromising Danish film Pusher, which followed the exploits of a drug dealer in Copenhagen, who when the police try to arrest him, loses a substantial drugs package which he hasn’t paid for and then must avoid being murdered while he raises the cash to pay off the drug lord he bought the narcotics from. This energetic and brutal debut would guarantee Refn future projects. His next two feature films Bleeder (1999) and his English-language debut Fear X (2003) were not commercially successful, his production company Jang Go Star was bankrupted by Fear X, thus he returned to his cult hit debut and created two sequels. Pusher 2 (2004) which switched the focus to a minor character from the original film and is arguably a superior work, a more rounded film than the first with a stand-out performance from Mads Mikkelsen (in the lead role this time) as the loser drug dealer who’s recently been released from prison and must confront his abusive father. Pusher 3 (2005) was also superior to the first Pusher film, again moving the focus to the drug lord Milo, who also first appeared as the villain in the original Pusher and this time has his own crisis to deal with in the form of two corpses he must dispose of after his daughters 25th birthday party. The trilogy’s roaming focus is one of its greatest assets, crafting the events of the sequels around supporting characters from the original film was a brave and audacious move and one which ultimately paid off. Previously Refn had moved to the USA for Fear X, a conventionally shot film which starred John Turturro. Given that Refn spent many of his formative years living in New York City, it seemed a natural move for the director to make, but after completing his Denmark-set Pusher trilogy he did not return to the USA, instead he moved his productions to the UK. Bizarrely starting his UK career with an episode of the Agatha Christie murder mystery series Marple. Unusually the episode in question displays none of Refn’s style and offers up nothing in the way of directorial flourishes to distinguish it from the rest of the series (unlike for example the episode of the US medical drama ER that Quentin Tarantino directed, Mike Figgis’ stint with The Sopranos or the episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street that Kathryn Bigelow helmed). After Fear X and his episode of Marple, fans of Refn’s work began to fear that outside of his native Denmark the director was unable to truly flourish, his work suffered in the same way as the films of Susanne Bier, Wong Kar Wai or Michael Haneke did when they were parted from their homelands. But such fears would soon be put to rest with the release of Bronson (2009). The biopic of famous convict Charles Bronson, (as played by Tom Hardy) a small time criminal and thief who becomes more violent and brutal after his incarceration. The film helped showcase Refn’s outlandish visual style as well as his energy and his skills as a director of great performances (getting a career best from Hardy). I know two actors who were involved with this production, Jonathan Phillips and Mark Devenport. Devenport commented to me that most directors either concentrate on the visual side of the film or the performance side of the film and that Refn was one of the few directors he’d worked with that understood and controlled both, Refn approached Devenport while he was learning his lines and told him that he “looked like a drama student straight out of college”, this sort of provocative and seemingly counter-intuitive direction (akin to the methods of Oliver Stone) is geared towards getting the best from performers. Still the film had its failings; it’s almost immediately forgettable and prioritises style over content. The style is original and inventive but the story is weak and the emotional/intellectual involvement is slight. It is a claim that can be made about most of Refn’s work, even the excellent Pusher Trilogy is presented on a very basic emotional/intellectual level; his concentration on character is admirable but without any kind of meaningful commentary, and often very basic storylines, his films can leave some audience members craving greater depth.

The Film: The Viking Movie is something of a lost sub-genre, in the past decade only Howard McCain’s Outlander (2008), Robert Zemeckis’ Beowolf (2007) and Marcus Nispel’s Pathfinder (2006) have been of note. Three major films in ten years: these numbers are indicative of the lack of interest the subject holds for modern audiences. Why this should be the case when Viking mythology is arguably as rich and diverse as that of the Romans or the Greeks is something of a minor mystery. The overall lackluster quality of the aforementioned films has done nothing to bolster the sub-genre’s standing, but Refn has changed all that with his gloriously violent, sublimely lyrical feature film Valhalla Rising, which fuses brutality and poeticism with startlingly effective results. The mute central character One Eye (played by Refn regular Mads Mikkelsen) finds himself captured by group of Norsemen and forced to battle and defeat their bravest warriors. One Eye (whose name is unimaginatively given to him by a young boy because he only has, you guessed it, one eye, the other presumably lost in battle given the distinctive scar tissue around his left eye socket). One Eye escapes, slays his captors and takes the young boy with him; they soon encounter a group of men who are heading to Jerusalem to spread the word of Christianity. One Eye and the boy join them on their journey across the sea. As they travel the boat is engulfed by fog reducing their visibility to zero, there is no tide, no waves and the boat is adrift for days, just as death seems certain for all of the men aboard they discover they’re now in a fresh water river, the fog clears and the landscape reveals itself to them. Where are they? Have they made it to Jerusalem or somewhere different? Is this a brave new world or their own personal hell? The boy tells the men that One Eye has come from hell, so perhaps that’s where he’s led them. Soon the men become aware that they’re surrounded by an invisible foe living in the forest and they begin to turn on one another. The story is simple and as with Refn’s previous efforts it is very slight; however unlike Bronson or the Pusher Trilogy, Valhalla Rising is not a character study, it is something altogether different. Our protagonist, One Eye, is not a particularly complex character, he remains completely silent throughout, his facial expressions barely betraying the slightest of emotions until towards the films climax, (a brave move on the part of Refn to put an actor as accomplished as Mikkelsen in the lead and then not give him a single line of dialogue) although Mikkelsen does manage to convey One Eye’s thought processes very effectively, a glance from his remaining eye, or a tightening grip on his axe lets us know exactly what he’s thinking and/or planning at any given point. One Eye is only slightly less talkative than everyone else, there is hardly any dialogue to speak of throughout the entire film, the first time someone speaks (around ten minutes in) it is a minor shock to hear a human voice, in particular the deep and distinct Scottish accent.

If there is little in the way of story or character what is the appeal of this film? Well put simply it’s all about mood. It may be the sort of glib description I try to avoid but one of the best ways to describe Valhalla Rising is Terrence Malick’s The New World (2005) meets Werner Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972). In the past I’ve commented on how Herzog and Malick share similar filmmaking styles (although often the thesis of their films are exact opposites, Malick exploring the harmony in nature which man destroys and Herzog seeing only chaos which destroys man). If we concentrate on style and delivery rather than the substance of their films then Herzog and Malick’s films appear very similar, Herzog’s work is of course rougher around the edges, but both directors concentrate on the environment, both place their audience within the environment rather than trying to manufacture it around the audience. Refn’s film is the same: Matthew Newman’s editing reminds me of the Malick-style montage, where the entire film seems to be comprised of half-scenes and stolen moments, often starting a scene a beat late or ending a scene a beat early; Valhalla Rising skips back and forth in time but without ever being bogged down by a traditional flashback structure. With the unstructured nature of this temporal editing we accept that at any point we may move back in time or that we may move back and forth between different events occurring at the same time but in different locations. Moren Søborg’s photography and colour grade combines with the edit to build a nightmarish vision of hell, the mostly hand-held photography keeps us on the ground and never sweeping above it, in the same way as The New World or Aguirre: The Wrath of God, we sense that the cameraman may slip on the mud at any point. Our view is set on as unstable a ground as the men we follow. Søborg was the director of photography on a number of Refn’s previous projects (The Pusher Trilogy and Bleeder) and also shot Susanne Bier’s films Open Hearts (2002), Brothers (2004) and After the Wedding (2006) and is easily one of the most talented cinematographers working in Europe today. Valhalla Rising was shot using one of the new Red One Cameras which only a handful of feature films have been shot on to date (Steven Soderberg’s Che Parts 1 and 2 being another notable example) it produces digital images for editing at up to 4K resolution (which is significantly greater than any equivalent digital cameras) meaning that when the images are presented on a cinema screen many of the usual visual inefficiencies of digital photography (such as white blow-outs) are absent. Only when Refn occasionally employees slow motion does its origins on video become apparent (camera movement or movement within the frame in such circumstances will still appear digital). Although the picture quality is inferior to 35mm it does point to a brighter future for digital filmmaking where the gap in image quality is substantially lessened. Søborg captures with his Red Camera the majesty of the Scottish Highlands, the mountainous terrain looks magnificent and adds real value to the film, the detail in the bearded, bloodied and weather torn faces of the Norsemen is startlingly clear and the overall texture of the image is very distinct from most modern motion pictures.

Refn’s film is also a master work of audio and visual harmony, the sonic ebb and flow is easily one of the most distinctive in recent years with Peter Kyed and Peter Peter’s dark metallic ambient music effortlessly amplifying the films dank and dangerous atmosphere, but equally the long stretches of near silence as the Vikings travel on their boat through the everlasting fog conjures up an eerie sense of dread. When the volume is suddenly cranked up (the first time one of the men is struck by an arrow when they row their boat down the river for example) the result is shocking, but as with the best horror films it never feels like a cheap trick to make the audience jump. One Eye has continual visions of the future; these flash forwards are usually painted in a distinct dark red, clearly contrasting with the rest of the films muddy brown and dark blue colour grade. These moments also jump-out at the audience unexpectedly and lay subliminal hints as to what is to come. In parallel with the films sound design, the visual beauty and quiet meditative pace is often interrupted by moments of vicious graphic violence, it is the nastiness of the violence which makes it so distinctive. One Eye ripping open a mans stomach with his bare hands and then removing all of his bowels while he’s still alive, or smashing an opponents skull with a piece of rock to the point that we can see his brains inside his now lifeless head. The violence is severe but it is never exploitative and although it runs the risk of glamorising such acts, it never tips this balance. Unfortunately the films marketing doesn’t recognise this fact, Valhalla Rising by itself is never going to be a film that will break box office records, it is a consciously art-house adventure film which will test the patience of a mainstream audience. The film should be aimed at cinephiles as every element of the production is geared towards an art-house mentality. The theatrical trailer for the film is not too deceptive (although it does predictably emphasise the films violence and doesn’t take into account the long stretches where there is no violence at all) but the current UK DVD cover is clearly mis-selling the film, featuring an image of One Eye standing topless with a sword in his hand and hordes of Viking soldiers standing behind him, implying that the film will feature sweeping battle sequences with hundreds of warriors like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, when in fact no such battle ever occurs and the cast of characters is relatively small (it’s a chamber piece, not a symphony). Worse still the DVD cover image is presented in muddy light browns and the type face is soaked in blood, clearly resembling the marketing for Zack Synders’ 300 (2007). The two films have next to nothing in common in terms of style, content or energy and it does Valhalla Rising a disservice to compare it to Synder’s comically conflictless feature film. Malick’s The New World also suffered from poor marketing; in that case they deliberately included lines of dialogue in the theatrical trailer which made neither the Theatrical or the Extended cut of the film because the lines were too conventional. Films like Valhalla Rising, which do not easily fit in any one commercial bracket, often suffer from poor marketing. Soderberg’s Solaris (2002) is another prime example which empahsised action in its theatrical trailer. Mis-selling the film does it no favours, a production like this requires good word of mouth to succeed and coning the viewer into parting money for a film that in no way resembles the one they’re purchasing is self-defeating.

Refn and co. have created another world with Valhalla Rising, a muddy, blood-soaked world where life is cheap and men habitually murder each other. The religious implications of the film are that those who try to convince others about the existence of their God are really only trying to convince themselves, the doubters of the cause emerge as the struggle becomes harder. Refn sees the film as a Sci-Fi and described the film as his version of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Both films do have much in common, both are structured around a series of chapters, both are light on character and heavy on mood, both rely on sound and vision for long stretches rather than dramatic conflict. However the messages of both films differ substantially: One Eye is Refn’s version of the Monoliths, but where the monoliths lead humanity to the next stage of evolution; One Eye only leads them to destruction and death. Humanity as we know it does not survive either film, but where 2001: A Space Odyssey points to a brighter future - Valhalla Rising points to the opposite.

M.Dawson