Valhalla Rising (2009)
Genre: Drama / Adventure
Duration: 93 minuten
Country:
Denmark / United Kingdom
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Mads Mikkelsen, Gary Lewis and Ewan Stewart
IMDb score:
6,0 (66.345)
Releasedate: 4 September 2009
Valhalla Rising plot
The mute slave One-Eye is forced to fight against other slaves so that his master can win money by placing bets. When a new master arrives, One-Eye manages to free itself. Followed by his young caretaker Are, he leaves his old existence behind. Not long after his escape, One-Eye and Are encounter a group of early Christian Vikings. They are enlisted to join them in liberating the Promised Land and the Holy City. After a sea journey that seems to last forever, the Crusaders finally reach land. During reconnaissance, the group is attacked by an invisible enemy. Did they arrive in the Promised Land or did they end up in Hell?
Actors and actresses
One-Eye
Kare
Gorm
Eirik
Barde
Pagan Viking Guard
Duggal
Olaf
Are / The Boy
Hagen
Reviews & comments
Lovelyboy
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- 3953 messages
- 2955 votes
Special movie. The dark atmosphere, the images, landscapes, it is a feast. Just like the music. A tuned masterpiece in that sense. And One-eye is a wonderful, fantastically stoic character from Mikkelsen who both repels and attracts. The story, if read into the history around Odin and other facts about Vikings Valhalla was the netherworld of the Vikings where you went after dying in battle, if you died in bed of old age you would never belong to it. Valhalla belonged to Odin and since gods in Norse mythology were mortal and Odin found out himself, we have a similarity there again. Odin, by the way, 'God of war'. Then there is the fact that Odin lacks an eye, he had sacrificed that eye and thus became all-seeing and all-knowing. There is the link with One-eye's visions. America was first reached by Vikings, that clashing with Indians was more than plausible. is especially interesting with all the aforementioned knowledge. Yet, due to the minimal dialogue and only the focus on the visual net, too little is obtained from what you see or what you want to play with what the viewer gets.
What remains, a film that I absolutely want to see again and perhaps judge it very differently, but in the first instance a visually and in terms of atmosphere stunning film but just too inaccessible regarding the subject.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
Picked up this film purely and because of Mads Mikkelsen. Well, it could just as well have been performed by another actor, because he doesn't speak in this film. Furthermore, the film could not interest me much with a somewhat hollow story about storming the gates of Jerusalem in the name of Christ. Pious Christians it was certainly not these people. Rather dirty dirty and rough Normans. But in the end they didn't get there. They ended up in "hell". It reminded me of Erik de Rode and his son Leif Eriksson who would have set 1000 feet ashore on the New Continent around the year.
Other than that, it's not all that much. A lot of brutal violence, especially in the beginning, and afterwards especially a lot of trampling around with some shadows with some light and some religious babble that absolutely did not convince. The film tout court didn't convince me, so it wasn't interesting for me either. Very beautiful wild images of nature, but as a whole insufficient.
Translated from Dutch · View original
UmbraVitae
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- 4371 messages
- 4079 votes
Wonderfully gray film, in a gloomy landscape where prisoners/slaves have to fight each other, to the death, isn't it nice 
That includes the first part, after the escape it's just a little less, but the gloomy atmosphere was great. Okay, Mads Mikkelsen attracted me to this film, but, since it's a deaf-mute role, it's only his character head that adds value, not meant negatively, on the contrary.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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