TIFF 2009: Valhalla Rising

Valhalla Rising (2009) dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Mads Mikkelson, Gary Lewis, Ewan Stewart

*1/2

There wasn’t a film I anticipated more at TIFF than “Vahalla Rising”. If anyone was going to do a mythological Viking story, I would have chosen Refn – a bold and muscular filmmaker largely unknown in North America but revered internationally for his magnificent Pusher trilogy. He also shocked me to bits this year at Sundance with his raucous ode to British prison lifer Charles Bronson, in “Bronson”.

And so with ‘Vahalla Rising’, a Danish filmmaker doing a Scandinavian story with Mads Mikkelson in the lead?? Pass me the popcorn please.

What Refn births onto the screen is the most alienating displeasing mind-numbing cinematic garbage I’ve seen in a long time.

Somewhere in Northern Scotland, or Scandinavia (which, at the time, was not all that dissimilar), it’s the Middle Ages – a time and place when Christian zealots warred with the old pagan/heathen way of life. A group of sadistic Christians are touring the countryside showcasing their pagan prisoners in a gruesome gladiatorial gambling game. Their star gladiator is ‘One Eye’ (Mads Mikkelson), who is tattooed to the max and with his left eye pulled out and grown over with skin. The match involves ‘One Eye’ forced to fight off two free opponents while tied with rope to a wooden stake. No matter what the challenge One Eye pummels and beats his opponents like rag dolls. Eventually One Eye escapes killing all his captors and seeks to return home.

Along with a young boy One Eye hook up with a group of Scottish crusaders looking to free the Holy Land. With nowhere to go One Eye and the kid tag along. The journey is long, slow, dreamy and violent. The faction eventually turn against each other when they realize their path has led them to some other land, instead of Jerusalem – a place where One Eye confronts his biggest challenge.

Sounds exciting, full of violent bloody fights, killing, and swordplay? Refn restricts his ability to entertain by handicapping himself severely. Chiefly, our hero ‘One Eye’ is rendered as a silent contemplative killer, a man of decision and action, like Mad Max or the harmonica man in ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, but unfortunately without any dialogue whatsoever. Secondly Refn sets a pace not unlike ‘Once Upon A Time in the West’, but the absolute slowest moments in that film without Leone’s writing skills to pay off the silences.

What we get is a slothlike metaphysical journey through rain and fog, with characters talking and moving in slow motion. There’s so little going on that Refn in a couple scenes ramps up the volume of the ambient atmospheric soundtrack to build up to absolutely nothing. Refn also inexplicably divides the film into six chapters with bold titles like ‘Hell’, ‘Warrior’ or ‘The Saviour’ falsely implying some kind of narrative shift or change in tone. Nope, it’s a just continuation of slow panning shots of mountains and fog.

The film builds to a reveal which, considering the terrain they were traversing makes no logical sense whatsoever, yet I still guessed it. Even with a third act twist Refn dulls any dramatic effect by slowing things down and refusing to throw us any kind of bone.

‘Vahalla Rising’ is a complete and utter waste of time and money.

SUNDANCE REPORT #11: Bronson

Bronson (2009) dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Tom Hardy, Matt King, James Lance, Kelly Adams, Amanda Burton

***1/2

One of the wildest, most idiosyncratic and uniquely cinematic films in recent memory has to be Sundance fave, “Bronson”. Anyone familiar with Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn’s muscular crime films, “The Pusher Trilogy” will recognize his provocative style. Bronson’s joyous sense of anarchy stands up to the chaos of “Fight Club” and the synaptic stimulation of “Natural Born Killers”.

Michael Peterson, who coined his own alternate name, Charles Bronson, is Britain’s most famous criminal. An infamous celebrity manufactured by Bronson himself through a life of almost impossibly violent behaviour. He loves violence, loves civil disobedience, loves fighting people. He marvels at his fists like deadly weapons. From this reputation as the most violent man in Britain Bronson has been lived 30 of his 34 prison years in solitary confinement.

Refn’s brilliant film tells Bronson’s story from the fractured and fantastical point of view of Bronson himself. The film opens with the bald headed, curly-moustached man (brilliantly played by Tom Hardy) talking to a tuxedo-clad audience. This is the mind of Bronson telling the highlights of his story like a narrated three-ring circus. We see his violent working class childhood segue into his first stint in jail, his eventual release, a shortlived relationship with a woman, his stint in a mental hospital, his escape and then the rest of the bloodcurdling fights which led to his solitary incarceration.

Refn’s inspired direction has the same anarchic cinematic satirical madness of “A Clockwork Orange”. Bronson has the same addiction to violence as Clockwork’s Alex DeLarge, and like Kubrick’s movie Refn makes no apologies for aggrandizing Bronson’s reprehensible behaviour.

Refn directs the film with a language equal to the brawny self-confidence and swagger of Bronson himself. Refn uses a wild mix of music selections to compliment the muscular visuals. He uses Wagner’s dramatically gothic ‘Prelude to Parsifal' in an early prison scene just because. His bold and bass pumping synth pieces from the 80’s represent the cutting edge of the decade’s pop culture. Bronson is hip, really hip.

The film also makes no attempt to be narratively coherent, Refn moves in and out of dream sequences, advances in time without the need for explanation. Scenes exist not to move the story forward but to express Bronson's state of mind. Refn’s cinematic tools consists of bold wide angle lenses, dark and bloody textured art direction, a gritty super 16mm film format, elegant slo-motion and statuesque framing of Bronson’s posturing.

Refn’s carefree attitude to the social irresponsibility of celebrating and mythologizing the violent life of a heinous criminal adds to the film’s distinct humour. Great films push buttons, and Refn’s buttons hit hard like a solid fist to the face. Enjoy.