🍿35: The Northman

This week, The Film Magazine's Founder & Editor Joseph Wade takes the helm of SP with his review of The Northman.

“We are more than flesh and blood, more than revenge. All of these things go. You should consider your soul… that is where the real pain lies.”

~ Valhalla Rising, 2009

The King is(n’t) dead…

“If there’s any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something.” That’s why I’m here today.

I’m Joseph Wade, the founder and editor of independent online film publication The Film Magazine. I’m a veteran of more than one thousand articles edited, hundreds written, and dozens of YouTube videos made in my name. As of this publication, I can also describe myself as the Guest Editor of a successful and hugely enjoyable newsletter. Thanks Tom!

I have been a loyal reader of Salty Popcorn throughout almost all of its journey to this point. I use this newsletter to keep up with news I may have missed, new releases I might not yet have heard of, and a perspective I find valuable. In this 35th SP, I hope that you can find my perspective valuable too, as I attempt to uphold the standards you have come to expect.

As a Masters graduate in Contemporary Film who wrote a 25,000 dissertation on the distinct stylings of one of English-language cinema’s most unique directors, Terrence Malick, it delighted me greatly that this edition of SP should so succinctly line up with the release of a new film from one of the most interesting authorial voices of the past decade, Robert Eggers.

The Northman is therefore this week’s featured film and the subject of my latest analytical and hopefully insightful review. If you enjoy what you read or want to know more about me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram @JoeTFM and @thefilmagazine.

If, like me, you enjoy reading new perspectives, please do consider supporting Salty Popcorn with a premium subscription.

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Now for the headlines:

• The line-up for the 2022 Cannes International Film Festival has been revealed. Expect entries from the likes of Claire Denis, David Cronenberg, Park Chan-Wook and Hirokazu Kore-eda. Read more.

• Kristen Stewart is set to star in Rose Glass’ (Saint Maud) upcoming romantic thriller, Love Lies Bleeding for A24. Read more.

• Director Nia DaCosta (Candyman (2021)) is attached to direct the screen adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ best-selling novel The Water Dancer. Read more.

• Robin Wright and Ray Winstone join Millie Bobby Brown and Nick Robinson in the upcoming Netflix fantasy movie Damsel. Read more.

• Will Ferrell has joined the star-studded cast of the upcoming Barbie film, which will be directed by Greta Gerwig. The cast includes Margot Robbie, Emma Mackey, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu, Michael Cera and Ryan Gosling.

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Salty Popcorn is 100% free but you can support this independent publication by paying just £5 per month. In return, you’ll be the first to access upcoming premium features.

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Upcoming Releases

The Quiet Girl

UK: 13 May // USA: TBC

This Irish-language family drama follows the story of a girl (Catherine Clinch) moving in with a foster family in 1981. This feature-length debut from director Colm Bairéad won the Dublin International Film Festival Audience Award in 2021 and the Berlin International Film Festival’s Children’s Jury Best Film Award in 2022. 

Crimes of the Future

UK: TBC // USA: 3 June

Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen star in horror film icon David Cronenberg’s first directorial effort since 2014. In the not-so-distant future, humanity is moved beyond its natural state and into a metamorphosis that alters its biological makeup…

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Fact of the week

We’ve got something of a sombre fact this week… the acclaimed writer & director Richard Linklater found his inspiration for Before Sunrise following a brief encounter in San Francisco with a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt.

Years later, in 2010 — after the release of Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) — Linklater discovered Lehrhaupt had died in a motorcycle accident before the release of Before Sunrise. In homage, Linklater dedicated Before Midnight (2013) to her.

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Review: The Northman

Star rating:

5 (out of 5)

Where to watch: 

USA: Only in Cinemas (22 April)

UK: Only in Cinemas

Runtime:

2hrs 16m

Director:

Robert Eggers

Blurb: 

This historical fable, based on the legend that inspired William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, tells a blood-soaked tale of Viking prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) who seeks to return to his kingdom and avenge his father.

The review (NO spoilers):

Acclaimed folk-horror director Robert Eggers’ (The Witch, The Lighthouse) latest release, The Northman, has been painted as a blockbuster historical epic akin to Game of Thrones: a blood-soaked offering with as many blunt-force traumas as muscle-bound heroes and spectacular locations.

Along with its star-studded cast, featuring Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy and Ethan Hawke — and the strange RPG tie-in with ‘Fortnite’ (a videogame played by more than 25% of preteens in the US) — you’d be forgiven for expecting this film to be little more than a blood-thirsty blockbuster. But fortunately, this isn’t the case. 

While it may be bloody cinema in the ilk of historical epics such as Braveheart and Gladiator, it’s not as closely related to Game of Thrones as the marketing and trailers will have you believe. This is a poetically read, historically-informed, real-life legend put to screen through the lens of a modern eccentric with silent-era trappings; a film that has more in common with The Seventh Seal and The Green Knight than Ben-Hur or Outlaw King.

As the protagonist Amleth, Alexander Skarsgård (The Legend of Tarzan) has never been so good. Intense and menacing, his presence transforms from that of a pristine Hollywood leading man into one of raw magnetism under the watchful eye of Eggers’ intimate lens.

Here, Skarsgård’s muscular physique emphasises his character’s animalistic tendencies, his wolfish intensity and his bear-like strength. This is in keeping with the legend itself as Amleth’s physicality is often compared to the animals of his Scandinavian kingdom. As our protagonist grunts his way through scenes with his head hung just a little off to the side, it becomes ever more clear that this Swedish actor was born to play this role.

What is perhaps most surprising about this historical epic of betrayal, sorcery, metaphor and reality-bending, is the truth that comes to the fore. The Northman overcomes theatrical action set pieces and blood-soaked nights in the mud to speak truthfully regarding the lasting effects of trauma and the fragility of toxic masculinity. 

This, like all great cinema, holds within it a deep connection to something vital about our current moment no matter your interpretation, all the while being impossible to take your eyes off. This is a feast-of-the-screen with the character focus and visual prowess of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, and the horror-adjacent off-kilter presentation of Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain.

In The Northman, director and co-writer Robert Eggers has forged that which is most appropriate to this fable’s position in history as the source of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: art. Only time will tell if this film is to become as timeless in cinematic terms as some of the greats I’ve compared it to here, but as a product of our time, it hits all the notes of the highest form of our great cinematic landscape - it is sensational.

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If you liked The Northman…

Valhalla Rising

2009 | UK: Amazon (£3.49) // US: Apple TV+ ($3.99)

Mads Mikkelsen stars in Nicolas Winding Refn’s English-language Danish fable of a slave who escapes his captors to join a group of Crusaders on their quest to the Holy Land.

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In the next issue:

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

UK: 22 April // USA: 22 April | Watch the Trailer

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