The problem with Robert Eggers’ “The Northman”
Where The Witch and The Lighthouse felt authentic to their roots in American folklore, The Northman feels like an insincere rendition of Scandic mythology seen through an American and anglocentric lens.
Robert Eggers directed two of my favourite films in The Witch and The Lighthouse which we’re focused, almost minimalist stories that felt rooted in American folklore and directed by an American director. In contrast, The Northman feels overproduced, bloated and insincere; a Scandic story told by an American director with multiple accents in English.
And that brings me to the first problem which is language. For both The Witch and The Lighthouse, the diction is unique to the era and location where they’re set. It’s part of the texture and authenticity of the film. That gets lost in the choice to do a Viking saga in English which gives the film a sacharine haze that brings it more in orbit of John Milius’ Conan The Barbarian (for which it shares an almost identical opening) and Yi-Mou Zhang’s The Great Wall than its predecessors.
Then there’s the issue of budget for which you’ll have to indulge me on some supposition on my part. The Witch(2015) had a budget of $4 million. The Lighthouse had a budget of $11 million. The Northman outstripped its budget of $65 million and reportedly cost between $70 to $90 million and yet I’d prefer seven Lighthouse-quality films to what we got here(“Ice better than diamonds”). What I suppose though is that Eggers didn’t have the liberty and control he had during the making of his previous films and particularly with Alexander Skarsgård as producer.
The Witch was written solely by Eggers and The Lighthouse with his brother Max whereas The Northman is a collaboration with Icelandic writer Sjón (whose work I have enjoyed) based on The legend of Amleth by Saxo Grammaticus. Being an adaptation must have been a further restriction on Eggers and Sjón plus being an over 800 year old story means key tropes have over time become stale particularly if interpreted directly which brings me to the next problem which is that there is a current example of a similarly aged story which successfully delivers.
Unlike The Northman, David Lowery’s The Green Knight (budget $15 million) created an intimate, fresh and innovative take on the 14th century story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which feels closer to Eggers’ earlier work than The Northman does. Comparing the two films, Dev Patel’s performance is exceptional and is genuinely intriguing whereas Skarsgård’s character is quite bland and this isn’t down to just what was given in the script either. Think of Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road who manages to do a lot in a similarly low-dialogue action epic. One wonders if this wasn’t a vanity project on Skarsgård’s part; it’s hard not to looking at his filmography.
Finally, I’m awaiting what Eggers does next with baited breath. I hope he returns to form with his next film Nosferatu, but again I wish he would return to his roots in American folklore and history. It worries me that another adaptation is in the works when he’s proven himself so capable writing original work.
