“Hate is all I’ve ever known. I want to be free of it.” Wanting and doing, of course, are two entirely different things. Particularly for men who have been ingrained with a societal message that replays the internalized mantra, “Be a man, be a man, be a man.” And what “being a man” has for so long signified is being a “protector.” Ergo, a “fighter.” Someone who relishes going to war under the banner of it being “necessary” to “protect” what’s “his.” This, beneath it all, usually boils down to power, which itself translates to territory. Indeed, the territorial nature of men doesn’t just extend to land, but to women as well. Even the ones they deem whores only fit for fucking and leaving.
Robert Eggers’ third film (and first “blockbuster”), The Northman, addresses these age-old issues regarding male comportment, even if through the lens of, at this point, a rather tired tale. For, yes, the legend of Amleth, by the name Hamlet, has always been “Shakespeare’s thing”—perhaps another testament to white men being inherently possessive (even if anti-Stratfordians know Shakespeare definitely didn’t write his own shit). But if anyone should feel possessive from beyond the grave, it’s Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote down the oral tale in History of the Danes, wherein the legend of Amleth is contained. The basic essence of which can be boiled down to Amleth’s (Alexander Skarsgård) repetitive slogan, “Avenge my father, save my mother, kill Fjölnir.” In short, if you really wanted to distill the message of the film, it’s, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” But while Inigo’s (Mandy Patinkin) father was killed by a smug nobleman, Amleth’s father was killed by his uncle, the aforementioned Fjölnir (Claes Bang). A familiar yarn, to be sure.
The Northman isn’t the first—and now, thanks to its popularity, probably won’t be the last—to go back to the true start of where Hamlet originated. There was also Gabriel Axel’s little-appreciated 1994 movie, Prince of Jutland, which took the Grammaticus approach to adapting what is now known more commonly as Hamlet. The fact that Ethan Hawke is in The Northman also adds a certain meta cachet, considering he played Hamlet back in 2000, in the infamously then-modern version (complete with corporate takeovers and CCTV hauntings) of the tale directed by Michael Almereyda. Apparently, Hawke can’t get enough participation in any version of the legend, coming back to it to play King Aurvandill War-Raven a.k.a. Amleth’s father.
It is King Aurvandill’s return to the castle that commences the narrative, and very much shows the audience just how much of an event everything used to be before technology made us all cynical and lacking in wonder. And yet, one of the things that’s most striking of all about The Northman is how it’s perhaps meant to make some viewers think, “Wow, it was so much worse back then” when, obviously, the current state of affairs is looking pretty fucking similar today in terms of the raping and pillaging done by berserking men (particularly in the same region once known as Rus). Because, unfortunately, the scenes of Amleth joining up with a band of Vikings after fleeing his Icelandic kingdom as they plunder territory in Rus (now known as Russia, with Belarus also taking some of the name) correlate a little too closely with what’s still going on in this part of the world. Eggers, “at least,” shows us moments of Amleth appearing to have brief flickers of grappling with morality. For when push comes to shove (no violence pun intended), he’s doing the very same thing that his uncle did: destroying lives for no good reason other than he “feels like it.”
But make no mistake: Amleth is a brute. While Hamlet is all clever quips and existential dread, Amleth is nothing but animal force and justice-seeking by any barbaric means necessary. In effect, Shakespeare actually “de-masculinized” the hero of Grammaticus’ account. And yet, there are some interpretations of The Northman that maintain Eggers’ intent here is also to “de-masculinize” in his own way—or, at least, hold up a mirror to men of how ridiculous the long-revered notion of what it is to “be masculine” is supposed to mean. To this, one must ask: have you seen how much men love looking at “idealized” versions of themselves? In other words, versions that sport ripped bodies while grunting, farting, burping and generally wreaking havoc (all of which occur in The Northman). There’s even some feral barking, to boot, which first takes place in Heimir the Fool’s (Willem Dafoe, in a brief but very memorable part) cave. On a side note, we’ll see he was destined to become the “poor Yorick” figure.
In addition to the “brute” trope, there is also the “twee” Northman of The Northman, Gunnar (Elliott Rose), the half-brother of Amleth who complains to Fjölnir, “This is slave work.” Such a comment made in reference to being asked to simply hammer a fence. And yes, he does sound like a young Donald Trump when he says this, with Fjölnir needing to explain that one must always be prepared to live like a slave when fate changes course. Because, once again, the notion of fate and ultimately being incapable of altering it, no matter how much we try, is at play throughout the film. Along with the whites doing some very strange rituals. Like when Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy, returning to the Eggers fold after The Witch) starts engaging in some Midsommar-esque maypole shit whilst wearing a holly crown to cement the “tradition.” Indeed, this entire moment also looks like it could pass for an outtake from a Lana Del Rey video. And, funnily enough, considering the Vikings were so anti-Christian (there’s a mocking joke made at one point about how Christians worship a dead man on a stick), it’s interesting that said denomination associates holly crowns with the crown of thorns worn by Jesus. With the red berries meant to signify the drops of blood Jesus gave for the so-called salvation of humankind. Thus, holly’s frequent bandying during the Christmas season. But it just goes to show that Christians stole all their material from “pagans” and “savages.”
As for Olga, a “Slav” (can one still say that today?), she’s somewhat taken by surprise by her own affections for poor, “helpless” Amleth and his rather tragic backstory. Upon being reminded of his destiny to “avenge my father, save my mother, kill Fjölnir,” he gets into a boat filled with slaves on its way to Iceland. You know, after pillaging the very village that has turned all these former denizens into slaves on this very boat. It is on this vessel that Olga can instantly tell Amleth is not one of them. He isn’t docile enough to pass for a slave. Wanting to assist him in his plan so that they might both be free, she says, “Your strength breaks men’s bones. I have the cunning to break their minds.” Not only a mere allusion to her “wit,” so much as her, shall we say, “aesthetic,” Olga is correct in that declaration. Especially after Fjölnir grossly remarks upon seeing her for the first time, “Keep her arms white and her hair long.”
This seems an appropriate moment to mention that the obsession with whiteness as it pertains to Viking culture was a product of German repurposing in the late nineteenth century. What started as the Völkisch movement ultimately became Nazism, all stemming from a little “innocent” whitewashing of Viking myths and folklore, despite the assured presence of other ethnicities during the epoch. But these ethnicities did not serve the purpose of romantic nationalism (a term that sounds positively oxymoronic). And so, it was white Vikings only, as far as the retelling of myths were concerned. Something The Northman adheres to with ease in its casting of, well, everyone involved. The marketing might have been even more botched (as it was when posters for the movie appeared in NYC subway stations without the actual title on them) had the team chosen to maintain the “o” in “Northman” as resembling a bit too closely the Odal rune still associated with the Nazi party, namely with the SS Race and Settlement Main Office, which bore the symbol as a badge on its uniforms. This division was, like most tentacles of the Nazi party, tasked with maintaining the “racial purity” of the SS.
Eggers, on the other hand, has been tasked with maintaining the “racial purity” of his cast. Even despite his assertion, “I have never been interested in Vikings. I didn’t like the macho stuff and the right wing, Nazi misappropriation of Viking culture turned me off altogether as an adult.” So maybe that’s why there’s Björk, the sole de-white-ifying source (that is, in “appearance” alone) involved. Because no movie set in Iceland would be legitimate without Björk’s presence and/or influence, it was technically she who originated/jump-started this entire project by introducing Robert Eggers to writer Sjón while the former was on a trip to the country with his wife. Being that Sjón is a long-time collaborator of Björk’s (having performed as Johnny Triumph in The Sugarcubes after starting a band with Björk when they were teenagers), it was only right that she should point some potential work in his direction.
That Björk herself ended up in the project as the eerie and memorable Seeress probably already would have seemed like a fait accompli to Sjón. And no, they aren’t strangers to collaborating filmically either, what with co-writing Dancer in the Dark’s cruelly titled “I’ve Seen It All” (nominated for Best Original Song at the 2001 Academy Awards, where, ironically, Gladiator was having a big moment). It is this seemingly destined quagmire of a collaboration that negates the tagline, “Conquer your fate.” A nod to the concept of how Amleth should be able to “re-thread” his fate throughout the narrative (by the way, the music supervisor definitely should have pushed for former Aryan emblem Taylor Swift’s “invisible string” to be on the soundtrack). And how he even helps others do the same—namely, the slaves on Fjölnir’s farm who he eventually liberates, telling them to do with their freedom what they’d like.
Yet freedom is, in its own fashion, as horrifying as slavery (too much hyperbole?). Because there’s nothing more anxiety-inducing than the pressure of having to make one’s own choices and live with the consequences… that is to say, without the cushion of being able to blame someone else controlling your every move. By the third act, Amleth is suddenly aware that nothing is controlling him. He has the power to walk away from “vengeance.” Alas, like so many men to this day, he does not possess the will, nor the desire to walk away from violence. He craves it, feels it is essential to his imaginary role as “protector.”
So no, The Northman does not “undermine the toxic masculinity of myth,” but rather, only seems to glorify it. In this regard, the film does exactly what it sets out to do: rehash a classic tale—the classic tale—of retribution. Flipped on its lid by the woman in the equation turning out to have been the villain all along (how’s that for reinforcing toxic masculinity—no matter what The Atlantic says), no interpretation of Gudrún (Nicole Kidman) as some kind of “feminist icon” can undo the fact that men are going to get off on how she turned out to be another “lying, stupid slut,” just as they’ve gotten off on seeing Amber Heard now painted that way.
Thus, if one really wants to look at a recent medieval-set film that does a better job of throwing shade on toxic masculinity, The Last Duel is still where it’s at. Some have asked, “Is The Northman a Failed Art Film, or Is It Robert Eggers’ Stolidly Successful Blockbuster Audition?” Neither. It’s simply yet another addition to the Amleth/Hamlet pile (more beautifully shot than most others) that couldn’t quite outdo The Lion King. And, at the bare minimum, animals can’t be accused of racial homogeneity.
