I smell a clever pupil. 895 AD, Hrafnsey. Young Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak) is on the verge of becoming a man when his father King Aurvandill War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) is brutally murdered by his half-breed bastard uncle Fjolnir (Claes Bang), who kidnaps the boy’s mother Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman). Two decades later, Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) is now a Viking who raids Slavic villages. He soon meets a seeress (Bjork) who reminds him of his vow – save his mother, kill his uncle and avenge his father and he travels from the Land of the Rus to Iceland and home in order to pursue his uncle for the destruction of his family when he fiinds out Fjolnir has been displaced by King Harold in the land that is rightfully his … I am your death. A visionary Viking epic? Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.The broad strokes of this Norse story are very reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a little rearranging of the boy’s name suggest it’s the actual source of that great tragedy. This is it, warts and all, gore and violence and visceral revenge writ large in every scene with Gertrude recast as the vicious Gudrun making a horrendous impression in the last third of the film. Do you know how to fight? Amleth’s progress – from burning, pillaging and murdering in a Viking band is marked at the midpoint when he is asked this, in his new incarnation as intentionally enslaved, in order to return to his homeland now ruled by King Harold where Fjolnir has been usurped and bides his time as a sheep farmer with the ‘kidnapped’ Gudrun and their sons. The answer is, Yes, he can fight. By now he he has acquired a love interest, Slavic sorceress Olga of the Birches (Anya Taylor Joy, previously in director Robert Eggers’ The Witch) a brilliant blonde who might be a match for his mother. How easily we all become princesses when the beasts take us as their wives. Gudrun is not the woman her oldest offspring suspects – and hearing that his father’s true nature encompassed rutting horses does not for an easy filial reunion make. In the end you’re just like your father – evil begets evil. Casting Kidman – who played Skarsgard’s abused wife in TV’s watercooler hit Big Little Lies – is inspired. This is literally the Oedipal story but here Mom’s the Devil. And so is Dad. And bastard Uncle. Amleth’s dreams of his arterial family tree merges with another dream, his passage to Valhalla and visions of a life to be and they all converge in his will to avenge. The landscapes are broad, the action brutal and Olga’s hopes for something like family life cannot stop Amleth doing what he must and finally confronting Fjolnir. That distempered spirit will ride you. It wields a hungry blade. With Bjork and Willem Defoe (Heimir the Fool) supplying the visions, a purposeful bag of flesh turned ripped man mountain performance from Skarsgard and a dogged, insinuating immersion into life without civilisation, this is like nothing else – even if the story beats are conventional, it is merciless in execution. Shot mostly on location in Northern Ireland (Game of Thrones country) with a thrilling finale in the cauldron of the Hekla volcano (actually Hightown quarry outside Belfast), watch out for legendary Irish stage performer Olwen Fouere as Fjolnir’s priestess Ashildur Hofgythja. The murk is splendidly presented by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke. Directed by Robert Eggers who co-wrote the screenplay with Sjon. I will avenge you Father. I will save you Mother. I will kill you Fjolnir
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