The Northman

 Year:  2022

Director:  Robert Eggers

Screenplay:  Sjón and Robert Eggers

Starring:  Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, Willem Dafoe

Running Time:  137 minutes

Genre:  epic, action, drama

895 AD: After King Aurvandill War-Raven (Hawke) is murdered by his brother Fjölnir (Bang), who carries off Queen Gudrún (Kidman), Prince Amleth (Skarsgård) swears to avenge his father and save his mother.  As years pass, Amleth plans to pose as a slave in Fjölnir's stronghold, and prepare for his revenge with the help of sorceress Olga (Taylor-Joy).

The film is based on the medieval Scandinavian legend of Amleth, which also inspired William Shakespeare's Hamlet.  However, if you are not into the Bard, you don't need to worry about this being Hamlet, it is basically more like a Viking version of Gladiator (2000), or a plot line from Game of Thrones (2011-2019).  Eggers, who has made his name with cerebral so-called "elevated horror" films such as The Witch (2016) and The Lighthouse (2020), may not seem like the obvious choice for making a blood-and-thunder action film, but the action is staged very well, even though it can be difficult to tell one hairy. bearded, mud-caked Viking from another.  The film is well-designed and it is a pretty bleak, unsympathetic worldview, even anti-hero Amleth seems more than happy to raid and pillage villages.  Alexander Skarsgård is good as the snarling, steely-eyed Amleth, Nicole Kidman is good as the sinister queen, and Anya Taylor-Joy, who made her name with Eggers' The Witch,  provides the film's conscience as the mystical, nurturing Olga.  The film has a semi-supernatural aspect with Olga's magic, and Amleth's frequent hallucinatory visions, as well as a magical sword.  Even though it is quite a long film, there is too much going on for it to ever get dull.  It's been a while since there was a proper musclebound sword and shield historical action film like this, so it is quite welcome.  It also comments on the price to be paid for vengeance on both sides.

Alexander Skarsgård is The Northman

Doctor Zhivago

Year:  1965

Director:  David Lean

Screenplay:  Robert Bolt, based on the novel Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Starring:  Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guinness, Rita Tushingham, Siobhán McKenna, Ralph Richardson

Running Time:  193 minutes, 200 minutes (1992 re-release)

Genre:  Period drama, epic

Against the backdrop of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, married doctor and controversial poet Yuri Zhivago (Sharif) falls in love with seamstresses daughter Lara (Christie), but their romance is threatened by the momentous historical events taking place around them.

This is probably one of the best known films of all time.  Even if you have never seen Doctor Zhivago, you probably have heard of it before.  This is real epic filmmaking, in scope and certainly in length.  British director David Lean had previously directed such popular epics as The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and he was a master of beautiful, widescreen spectacle.  Moving from cramped, dingy flats, to partial restaurants and grand houses, to gorgeous vistas of snowy fields and forests, the film is always beautiful to look at, and it really needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, because watching it on television, even a big one, means that some of the impact is lost.  Lean is also good at choreographing the frequent surging crowd scenes, riots and cavalry charges, as well as finding some quiet poetry in the images of nature, and the spectacular sequence in a house that looks as if it is made of ice, it's so frozen.  Incidentally, the novel by Boris Pasternak was banned in the Soviet Union, and so the film could not be shot there, instead it was largely filmed in Spain.  There are some impressive performances: Omar Sharif as the brooding Doctor Zhivago; Julie Christie in her star making role as Lara; Geraldine Chaplin is quite underused as Zhivago's wife, Tonya; Rod Steiger plays the repulsive Komarovsky who wants to seduce Lara; Tom Courtenay is good as Lara's idealistic husband Pasha, who is devoted to the revolution; Alec Guinness plays Zhivago's conflicted half-brother; and Rita Tushingham bookends the film as the woman Guinness is convinced is his niece.  Also in the eclectic cast is notorious Werner Herzog regular Klaus Kinski.  Despite it's reputation as a romance, the love story is the backbone of the narrative but the romantic scenes are surprisingly brief.  The fact that a largely British cast are playing Russian characters strikes a bit of a false note, just due to the accents.  Also the story hinges a lot on coincidence, when people just happen to run into each other which doesn't seem very realistic when Russia is quite a big place.  These are small criticisms though, because this is a great film.  It belongs to a period of epic filmmaking which I don't think exists anymore, for the most part marrying spectacle to real human drama.  Despite it's length, it moves at a lively pace and it is never dull.  It also features a memorable score by Maurice Jarre.  It is one of those films that you definitely need to see at some point, particularly if you ever get the chance to see it in a cinema.

Julie Christie and Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago