I've been a fan of Eggers for a while and one of the aspects I love the most about his movies is his ability to portray subjective perspectives and personal beliefs as being equivalent to reality. A lot of movies and directors like to portray religion or personal beliefs as either "false" or "ambiguously real" but Eggers always paints beliefs as "equal to reality" as one's beliefs and perspectives shape their view of how they interpret the world.
The best thing about The Northman is that this view is maintained, and I love the fact that we frequently see how our protagonists interpret the world through their world-view. There are several great moments where the movie really pushes this idea and I think it is fantastic to see more directors respectful of how one's world shapes their reality.
That being said, this movie is a mess.
Here are my core issues with the film: 1. The pacing of emotional beats is poor: The movie either needed to be longer so that the emotional beats were spread out further and built up to more OR the movie needed to be shorter and half of the emotional beats cut-out so that the ones that remained were more fine-tuned and impactful. Due to the pacing being awkward, it is very hard to get invested in a lot of what's happening and I think a good portion of this film could've been cut to make a coherent narrative.
What's interesting about this is that it is actually an issue I've had with every Eggers movie and I think now is the first time people are picking up on it being a writing/editing issue. The Lighthouse also had this issue where the number of "confusing beats" are fired so quickly and in rapid succession after the 30 minute mark that the movie feels more like a movie with 2 Acts instead of a movie with 3 Acts. With The Witch and The Lighthouse I think it was less noticeable to audiences because those are very simple films, but in an epic that is SUPPOSED to be character driven it becomes blatantly clear that the film isn't paced properly.
2. The dialogue/acting is bad, and I'm not talking about the vernacular: The general dialogue is bad and not necessarily due to vernacular being hard to follow but because it comes across as very forced. There were many moments where I was reminded of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, interestingly, a movie that also tried to have a Shakespearean tone to its dialogue. Again, I also think the pacing of emotional beats hurt the dialogue because sometimes the dialogue is too dramatic or not dramatic enough based on the adjacent scenes. However, I will note that it is obvious that portions of this movie were overdubbed/ADRed because the lip-sync is off, so I don't know how much of the acting issues in the movie are due to being overdubbed or due to the acting actually being bad.
3. The action and cinematography works against the movie: As someone who works on tracking shots in movies, this was one of the most obvious problems I noticed: Almost every tracking shot action sequence is paced poorly and feels very sluggish. Now, one could argue that it was intentionally trying to feel more "realistic" but if that were the case then I would expect it to be shot a bit differently and more like something like The Revenant or Children of Men. Also, in regard to the overall cinematography of the film, the centered mid-close-up is used waaaay too often in this film for it to feel effective. Every once in a while, the movie will pull the camera back to look like a John Bauer or Sidney Sime illustration, but it doesn't do this enough or with intent to get across the "romantic Norse epic" vibe that it is going for. The minimalistic, centered, and dreary cinematography is in direct conflict with the attempts at trying to look like an early 20th century fantasy illustration.
4. The plot: It's predictable. I think from the very first scene where the mother says "Do not enter my chambers without knocking" you know exactly what is going to happen and it's just a matter of time until you get to that point. Now, that doesn't mean having a simple plot is bad, but it certainly doesn't add to the movie.
5. Character development is nil. I can't really say more than that. It's just non-existent or poorly executed.
It's a shame that this movie doesn't really work as a whole, and more of a shame that so many people hyped up this movie as something it clearly isn't. Numerous people compared this movie to "Gladiator" in terms of quality, but I now question the sanity or bias of many of those individuals who said such things. Looking back at reactions to this movie, I really feel like most people WANTED this movie to be a success and when it failed at the box office no one could admit that maybe it failed because it was a bad movie and not because "audiences these days are too simple minded for this masterpiece".
I get it. I love a good art film as much as the next person but that doesn't mean all attempts at making "art" are successes. This movie flopped because it alienated both demographics: It failed as an engaging character driven epic and it failed as an art film.
The best thing about The Northman is that this view is maintained, and I love the fact that we frequently see how our protagonists interpret the world through their world-view. There are several great moments where the movie really pushes this idea and I think it is fantastic to see more directors respectful of how one's world shapes their reality.
That being said, this movie is a mess.
Here are my core issues with the film: 1. The pacing of emotional beats is poor: The movie either needed to be longer so that the emotional beats were spread out further and built up to more OR the movie needed to be shorter and half of the emotional beats cut-out so that the ones that remained were more fine-tuned and impactful. Due to the pacing being awkward, it is very hard to get invested in a lot of what's happening and I think a good portion of this film could've been cut to make a coherent narrative.
What's interesting about this is that it is actually an issue I've had with every Eggers movie and I think now is the first time people are picking up on it being a writing/editing issue. The Lighthouse also had this issue where the number of "confusing beats" are fired so quickly and in rapid succession after the 30 minute mark that the movie feels more like a movie with 2 Acts instead of a movie with 3 Acts. With The Witch and The Lighthouse I think it was less noticeable to audiences because those are very simple films, but in an epic that is SUPPOSED to be character driven it becomes blatantly clear that the film isn't paced properly.
2. The dialogue/acting is bad, and I'm not talking about the vernacular: The general dialogue is bad and not necessarily due to vernacular being hard to follow but because it comes across as very forced. There were many moments where I was reminded of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, interestingly, a movie that also tried to have a Shakespearean tone to its dialogue. Again, I also think the pacing of emotional beats hurt the dialogue because sometimes the dialogue is too dramatic or not dramatic enough based on the adjacent scenes. However, I will note that it is obvious that portions of this movie were overdubbed/ADRed because the lip-sync is off, so I don't know how much of the acting issues in the movie are due to being overdubbed or due to the acting actually being bad.
3. The action and cinematography works against the movie: As someone who works on tracking shots in movies, this was one of the most obvious problems I noticed: Almost every tracking shot action sequence is paced poorly and feels very sluggish. Now, one could argue that it was intentionally trying to feel more "realistic" but if that were the case then I would expect it to be shot a bit differently and more like something like The Revenant or Children of Men. Also, in regard to the overall cinematography of the film, the centered mid-close-up is used waaaay too often in this film for it to feel effective. Every once in a while, the movie will pull the camera back to look like a John Bauer or Sidney Sime illustration, but it doesn't do this enough or with intent to get across the "romantic Norse epic" vibe that it is going for. The minimalistic, centered, and dreary cinematography is in direct conflict with the attempts at trying to look like an early 20th century fantasy illustration.
4. The plot: It's predictable. I think from the very first scene where the mother says "Do not enter my chambers without knocking" you know exactly what is going to happen and it's just a matter of time until you get to that point. Now, that doesn't mean having a simple plot is bad, but it certainly doesn't add to the movie.
5. Character development is nil. I can't really say more than that. It's just non-existent or poorly executed.
It's a shame that this movie doesn't really work as a whole, and more of a shame that so many people hyped up this movie as something it clearly isn't. Numerous people compared this movie to "Gladiator" in terms of quality, but I now question the sanity or bias of many of those individuals who said such things. Looking back at reactions to this movie, I really feel like most people WANTED this movie to be a success and when it failed at the box office no one could admit that maybe it failed because it was a bad movie and not because "audiences these days are too simple minded for this masterpiece".
I get it. I love a good art film as much as the next person but that doesn't mean all attempts at making "art" are successes. This movie flopped because it alienated both demographics: It failed as an engaging character driven epic and it failed as an art film.