Review: The Northman (2022)
The Northman, released in 2022, was Robert Eggers' third stint in the director's chair for a feature film. The viking-era adventure story is based on the Scandanavian legend of Amleth and was made in consultation with a trio of academics specialising in that period of history. This shows through on screen, as Eggers highlights again his ability to direct a work that feels correct to a range of viewers. Watching the film with the eye of an (extremely) amateur historian is a treat; costuming and set dressing generally seem accurate, and this is complimented beautifully by the film's stunning colour grading. Eggers deftly avoids the great grey mud mistake that so many films make when set in the dark ages or medieval period. Colour is not absent, but the darks are deep, and contrast is sharp. Whilst desaturated by industry standards, the film feels slightly richer than the VVitch, though that may be partly down to the stunning landscape upon which the story is set.
Building on this, the nighttime scenes are a masterpiece of cinematography; the film is once again shot by Jarin Blaschke in his third collaboration with Eggers. When I first saw a night scene, I was taken aback by how real the colours felt, with saturation almost totally absent. As one would expect, this was an intentional choice, and Blaschke spent no small effort creating bespoke lens filters for the shooting of nighttime scenes. This leads to an impressive effect wherein two different parts of the same scene are able to have two totally different saturation levels. Landscapes at night look utterly dark and desaturated, but a torch in the same scene exhibits a full range of colour. This replicates the human body’s inability to perceive the full range of colour in low light levels, and helps dark shots feel true to life.
Not to be outmatched, the sound design is fantastic, with both the score and general folie doing wonders for the film’s feel. More mystical scenes revel in a grating, guttural vocal production that works beautifully even on home speakers, forcing the saga into the hearts of the viewer. In the score, strings are used surgically to ramp tension at the most unsettling moments throughout the film. As a final complimentary note, the scripting is strong in its stylistic adherence. It occasionally resembles soliloquies, with our protagonist Amleth taking a notable moment in the film's middle to speak to his sword. This speaks to the screenplay’s heritage in Norse epics, and its cousinly relationship to Shakespearean theatre.
To draw this to a close, despite the baggage of duration that its heritage saddles it with, The Northman is sculpted to be a beautiful and visceral retelling of a classic Scandinavian legend. I found it to be an enjoyable watch, although it is worth noting that I enjoyed my second viewing far more than my half-remembered first. Perhaps age has granted a certain cinematic wisdom, or maybe I was more in the mood for an epic this time around. Either works.