One of the most daring and audacious directors in Europe, Nicolas Winding Refn is probably best known for the epochal Pusher trilogy, which transplanted the gangster film to Copenhagen and gave it a tragic import and epic scale. (It may be the only gangster series that evokes not only Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma but also Shakespeare's Henry IV plays.) His most recent effort, Valhalla Rising, is possibly even more ambitious, since it tackles one of the tawdriest genres in cinematic history – the viking movie – and elevates it so significantly that the film bears almost no relationship to its forebears.
Valhalla Rising begins on a desolate coast where the heads of warring clans meet in battle. For years, the most fearsome and successful fighter has been an enigmatic figure known only as One Eye (played by the inestimable Mads Mikkelsen, star of the first two Pusher films, as well as Casino Royale and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, also playing at the Festival).
Silent and lethal, One Eye has defeated everyone he's encountered, but he's treated more like an animal than a warrior. The only person he has any relationship with is the young boy who brings him food and water daily. Constantly caged and shackled, One Eye has drawn the attention of a new force now sweeping the countryside and displacing the society's leaders: Christians.
Determined to claim territory for his faith, the leader of a band of Christians sets sail on an ill-fated odyssey to the Holy Land with One Eye and the young boy in tow. Referencing masters like Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone with a touch of Andrei Tarkovsky thrown in for good measure, Valhalla Rising shows how carnage, once invoked, has no fealty but to itself. Little separates the Christians from their pagan predecessors – they're just as bellicose and bloodthirsty.
The film's landscapes look so foreign and desolate that Valhalla Rising might as well have been shot on the moon. By emphasizing the distance between these characters and us, Refn paradoxically makes the events seem closer and more immediate. Rarely has a film exposed so succinctly the specious, often theological justifications for war.
Steve Gravestock
Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Copenhagen and studied in New York City at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his feature directing debut with
Pusher in 1996. He has since directed the features
Bleeder (99),
Fear X (03),
Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands (04),
Pusher III:I'm the Angel of Death (05),
Bronson (09) and
Valhalla Rising (09).