established himself as one of his generation’s
most distinctive voices. His first film, 2015’s “The
Witch,” was set among Puritan settlers in 1630s
New England. His 2019 film “The Lighthouse”
starred Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as mad
lighthouse keepers off the Northeast coast in the
1890s. All three films not only take their history
seriously, but burrow into bygone — or maybe
not so bygone — nightmares. As is incanted in
the opening of “The Northman,” they “summon
the shadows of ages past.”
The recent trend toward folklore in film can, in
lesser movies, seem like the cinema version of
a paleo diet. But Eggers’ films have carried the
potency of myths resurrected and reanimated,
and in doing so have unearthed rich new
territory. “The Northman,” with a reported
budget north of $70 million, is a bigger
canvas and more archetypal. With sweeping
Scandinavian vistas and a finale set among rivers
of burning lava atop an ash-spewing volcano,
“The Northman” is forged in a powerfully
primal fire.
It is, though a lean story, with not as much
meat on the bone as its ambition may call
for. The mythic simplicity is part of the point
of “The Northman,” but the movie’s single-
minded protagonist and its elemental conflicts
verge closer to “Conan the Barbarian” territory
than perhaps is ideal. Eggers’ film is only
fitfully enchanting and squanders its mean
momentum. Once Amleth returns home, he
bides his time for the right moment, and the
movie seems to be filling time with supernatural
segues and comically grotesque killings. For the
first time, it feels like Eggers is relying on pagan
pageant more than psychology to drive the