{"id":2879,"date":"2010-09-17T23:28:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-18T03:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=2879"},"modified":"2018-08-10T01:26:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T05:26:17","slug":"valhalla-rising-refn-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=2879","title":{"rendered":"(Refn 2009) Valhalla Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>This is per\u00adhaps the odd\u00adest of the Medieval flics I\u2019ve seen recent\u00adly. Dan\u00adish direc\u00adtor Nico\u00adlas Wind\u00ading Refn, best known for his <\/span>Push <\/em><\/span>series of thrillers, has cre\u00adat\u00aded a relent\u00adless\u00adly enig\u00admat\u00adic, grim, and vio\u00adlent film set in the year 1000 AD<\/span>.  The lead role is played by Mads Mikkel\u00adson, who starred in two of the <\/span>Push<\/em><\/span> films, and has gone on to a Hol\u00adly\u00adwood career. <\/span>Val\u00adhal\u00adla Ris\u00ading<\/em><\/span> is obvi\u00adous\u00adly aimed at the \u201cart house\u201d crowd, and in those cir\u00adcles, it has achieved crit\u00adi\u00adcal suc\u00adcess (with some notable dis\u00adsention). Unfor\u00adtu\u00adnate\u00adly, the dis\u00adtrib\u00adu\u00adtors pro\u00admot\u00aded it as an \u201caction\u201d pic\u00adture, try\u00ading to sell it to peo\u00adple who liked <\/span>Brave\u00adheart<\/em><\/span> or <\/span>High\u00adlander<\/em><\/span>. Those view\u00aders were bound to be dis\u00adap\u00adpoint\u00aded with its min\u00adi\u00admal plot, long action\u00adless seg\u00adments, dream sequences, and unex\u00adplained events. The film cost <\/span>\u00a3<\/span>4,000,000 to pro\u00adduce and did\u00adn\u2019t make a dime. <\/span><\/p>\n

Actu\u00adal\u00adly, there\u2019s a per\u00adfect\u00adly straight\u00adfor\u00adward inter\u00adpre\u00adta\u00adtion of every\u00adthing that hap\u00adpens in the film, but it must be guessed as one goes. A pagan Norse\u00adman named One-Eye escapes from cap\u00adtiv\u00adi\u00adty in the Scot\u00adtish high\u00adlands. After tak\u00ading vengeance on his cap\u00adtors, he is joined by a boy named Ari. Togeth\u00ader, they join with a par\u00adty of Scot\u00adtish cru\u00adsaders, bound for the Holy Land. Their ship is lost in the fog, and ends up in a mys\u00adte\u00adri\u00adous land, obvi\u00adous\u00adly meant to be Que\u00adbec (they enter a vast riv\u00ader estu\u00adary that runs fresh). The film was shot in Scot\u00adland, and the land\u00adscape looks vague\u00adly right, but the veg\u00ade\u00adta\u00adtion is all wrong. They fight among them\u00adselves, take a hal\u00adlu\u00adci\u00adna\u00adto\u00adry drug, wan\u00adder around, and are attacked by natives. Every\u00adone dies except the boy. Not much of a plot, but the events are intend\u00aded pri\u00admar\u00adi\u00adly as a coat-hang\u00ader for visu\u00adal images.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Native Cana\u00addi\u00adans who appear toward the end of the film look rather odd. They are paint\u00aded from head to foot in red ochre (which has some his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal sup\u00adport). Well, there is no rea\u00adson why they should have looked as they did six cen\u00adturies lat\u00ader. But they just don\u2019t look right phys\u00adiog\u00adnom\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly. I looked close\u00adly at the clos\u00ading cred\u00adits, and found that every sin\u00adgle actor who plays one has a Tibetan name! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is per\u00adhaps the odd\u00adest of the Medieval flics I\u2019ve seen recent\u00adly. Dan\u00adish direc\u00adtor Nico\u00adlas Wind\u00ading Refn, best known for his Push series of thrillers, has cre\u00adat\u00aded a relent\u00adless\u00adly enig\u00admat\u00adic, grim, and vio\u00adlent film set in the year 1000 AD<\/span>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[948,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-d-viewing","category-dq-viewing-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2879"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8125,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions\/8125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}