# Valhalla Rising (2009)



## Nerds_feather (Jul 2, 2012)

Anyone seen this? By the guy who directed "Drive." 

It's a mesmerizing, surreal and serious viking movie, albeit one that's a bit nauseatingly gory at times. Full review here:

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2012/07/microreview-film-valhalla-rising.html


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## Moonbat (Jul 2, 2012)

I watched this a couple of years ago and I was throughly disappointed. It started well, with a nice idea baout men being forced to fight, but then descends into a pretencious load of rubbish, with a group of 'vikings' were they really vikings or highlanders? sailing to America? where it just gets more rubbish (somehow unbelievably).

Now that you tell me it is from the director of Drive, which is IMHO one of the most over-rated movies of recent years, I can understand why I found that so poor as well. 

No doubt Valhalla rising has some great cinematography, but the slow obsequious plot and the real lack of a story for the second half of the film lets it down. One of the worst films I have ever owned, and I own a lot of bad films.


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## Nerds_feather (Jul 2, 2012)

got to disagree with you on most of that, moonbat, but it may just come down to a difference in taste. i rather like slow, visually arresting and surreal films that are open to interpretation, as i think this is film-as-art. to me that's like going to a great modern art exhibit. (of course i also like entertaining, fast-moving films as well!)

also, they are definitely vikings, and the first setting is almost certainly supposed to be iceland. and if not, it's the shetlands/orkneys/faroes. but definitely somewhere that was, at that time, very very viking. the clothes, weapons and boats the characters use are actually quite typical of what vikings wore/used, and there are enough cultural references to reinforce that. 

all that said, the one thing i do agree with is the poor explanation for how they got to north america. a few things don't make sense here. iceland converted to christianity en masse, and by vote, in the year 1000. the first crusade was in 1096. so assuming this takes place at that time. but the vikings were also really, really good navigators, and knew how to get to the mediterranean and middle east via several clearly established trade routes. sure they might have gotten lost...but that lost? unlikely. that got a -1 in my review, though i was more oblique about it so as not to spoil things for someone who hasn't seen the film yet.

(of course another explanation for this is that they aren't actually off course in the real world, but in some sort of cursed astral plane).


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## Moonbat (Jul 2, 2012)

Ah, well there's no accounting for taste 
I'm all for art (even modern art) but I like movies to be movies, to have a story and to tell it properly. Of Nicholas Winding Refn's films I like *Bronson*, but mainly for the performance by Tom Hardy. I think films that are art for art's sake belong in a gallery not a cinema.

You'll probably like Terrance Malik's *Tree of Life*.


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## svalbard (Jul 2, 2012)

I will second Nerds on this. I thought it was fantastic, a pure trip of a movie. Although I did think they were a band of Scots off to the Crusades. 

I also loved *The Tree of Life*. As my wife keeps telling me. There is no accounting for taste


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## Nerds_feather (Jul 2, 2012)

haven't seen "The Tree of Life," but "The Thin Red Line" is one of my all-time favorite war movies...second only to "Come and See," a late Soviet "trip of a movie," as svalbard says.


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## Starbeast (Nov 12, 2012)

Nerds_feather said:


> Anyone seen this? By the guy who directed "Drive."
> 
> It's a mesmerizing, surreal and serious viking movie, albeit one that's a bit nauseatingly gory at times.


 
I loved it.  I watched it when I was in a bad mood, and I felt great at the end.

For me, it is one of the best ultimate warrior films I've seen in a while. I wish it was an hour longer, because I enjoyed the tension and the dramatic silence. A masterpiece set in the "sword age" of human history.

I've seen it twice.


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