TIFF’s With Blood On His Hands – The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn Review: Valhalla Rising (2009)

Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson, Alexander Morton
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Country: Action | Adventure | Drama | Fantasy
Genre:
Official Website: Here

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for TIFF’s With Blood On His Hands – The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn which runs from October 24th to November 5th at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.

Nicholas Winding Refn is a master at marrying style and substance to the point where the line between them blurs completely. His films are about the way he shoots them and what that communicates in regards to the world of the film, and our own. His style is incredibly calculated (even as he has admitted his stories are often more freely formed), but it is deliberately expansive and deeply meaningful. Refn’s works are stylistic reflections of their deeper substance, to the point that they would often work as silent films. In fact, for long stretches Valhalla Rising functionally does, centered as it is on a mute man of action in the quiet expanses of untamed nature.

Refn’s works are stylistic reflections of their deeper substance, to the point that they would often work as silent films. In fact, for long stretches Valhalla Rising functionally does, centered as it is on a mute man of action in the quiet expanses of untamed nature.

The film follows a Norse warrior called only One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen, who gives a phenomenal, and completely silent, performance), who breaks free of captivity, killing his masters and travelling to the New World in the company of aspiring Christian Crusaders. Insofar as the film has a plot, that is it, but the story is largely beside the point. The film is at its best in long, wordless sequences that revel in the undisturbed power of nature absent the influences of man, and situate the characters within a world that is alien just because it has remained untouched. Nature is quiet, undisturbed, unknowing and uncaring in regards to the men who trample it. By contrast, the men we see are violent, destructive, forces of ruin in a world that offers nothing but splendor. Nature flourishes, mankind destroys. But also, mankind acts while nature can only react.

One-Eye is in every sense an existential hero, a man defined fully by his actions. In fact, his silence demands we judge him only by his actions—his actions are the whole of who he is to us, but more importantly, they are his entire being even inside his own head. One-Eye is shown to be prophetic, with his visions wrought in bright, vibrant reds and muddy grays. In them, he is bathed in blood red while the world around him recedes into irrelevance. He sees what he will do, and he does what he sees. His only thoughts are of his next action. If Valhalla Rising has a story beyond the thread-bare plot laid out above, it is the tale of a man who lost his freedom and his agency seizing them back for himself, living as he chooses, and finally deciding to give up his burdens. Choice becomes the only meaningful thing in an empty and uncaring world where violence is the primary means of communication. One-Eye is given a voice through his violence; his force makes his existence an irrefutable fact to anyone who crosses his path. His oppressors had denied him before, but no one can deny the presence of the man who murders them.

If Valhalla Rising has a story beyond the thread-bare plot laid out above, it is the tale of a man who lost his freedom and his agency seizing them back for himself, living as he chooses, and finally deciding to give up his burdens.

Valhalla Rising is a gorgeous film, wherein Refn channels Terrence Malick. Each shot becomes a canvas on which he paints a portrait of the beautiful, bloody, tragic life of a warrior. It is esoteric, with a six-act structure that demands deeper analysis and a religious message that is unrelentingly bleak. The film willfully meanders, more interested in discovering these people and the world they live in than in telling an intricate story. This was a time before civilization took hold in the world, where a theoretical God was the only institution standing between chaos and order. When faith starts to break down, so too does this society. And the trees stand still, the wind whipping through the leaves as a constant reminder that whether we live or die, no matter what we do with our short time on Earth, the universe will go on, never even deigning to notice us as we rage against its silence. We demand meaning. It demands nothing. There’s no question which will win in this zero sum game. Long after this band of travellers is reduced to dust, the New World they explore will mutely carry on. Yet while they live, they can choose what to make of themselves, they can hope to shape their time on Earth and the legacies they leave behind. Their stories may never be told. Their struggles may be in vain. But they, at least, will know they fought, will know they tried, will know they were, regardless of what that means in an infinite expanse. To the world, their lives are a grain of sand on an endless beach. To them, their actions are everything.

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Jordan Ferguson

Sr. Staff Film Critic

Jordan Ferguson is a lifelong pop culture fan, and would probably never leave his couch if he could get away with it. When he isn’t wasting time “studying the law” at the University of Michigan, he writes about film, television, and music. In addition to writing for Next Projection, he is the Editor-in-Chief of Review To Be Named, a homemade haven for pop-culture obsessives. Check out more of his work at Reviewtobenamed.com , follow him on twitter @bobchanning, or just yell really loudly on the street. Don’t worry, he’ll hear.

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