The Northman

...a feminist Viking film?

I recently discovered Richard Hanania’s blog and YouTube channel. After perusing it a bit and listening to some of his interviews, I decided to watch the Robert Eggers movie The Northman based on the fact that Hanania had devoted a podcast episode to it. After watching the movie, I listened to his conversation with Rob Henderson, expecting a based review with some interesting insights and reflections, but came away shocked how little of interest they actually had to say.

Typifying their conversation was their discussion of whether or not The Northman should, maybe, be viewed as a feminist film–musings coming out of their indecision over the question of whether the mother should be viewed sympathetically. Well, there is a clear answer to that question, and let’s look at what it is, beginning with a quick review of the plot.

Amleth, a 10th-century Viking, is a prince dispossessed of his inheritance by his uncle, who kills his father and marries his mother. After growing up abroad, Amleth returns to kill his uncle and free his mother, only to discover that his mother was in on the plot against his father. In the scene of the big reveal, the mother describes how Amleth was conceived against her will and that she hated his father but actually loved his uncle. After Amleth, aghast, says he should kill her as well as his uncle, she tries to seduce Amleth with the prospect that, since nobody knows his true identity, he could marry her and rule as king. The scene ends with Amleth rejecting her incestuous proposition and she raging against him as he leaves. In the end, Amleth does kill her as well as his uncle, but suffers his own death as well.

As Hanania points out, “Amleth” is an anagram of “Hamlet”, and as is de rigeur to say in reviews of The Northman, the core story is related to that Shakespearean play, which is in fact a retelling of any earlier Norse story with a similar plot. In fact, it is more the case that “Hamlet” is an anagram of “Amleth,” as Amleth is the original name of the protagonist in the oldest extant versions of the story. The Northman in a sense is not so much a retelling of Shakespeare’s play as a renewal of the original pre-Shakespearean Norse mythology.

I say renewal, but not retelling. For example, the film does not recapitulate the mother-son dynamic of the earlier Norse stories. In the medieval versions, after Amleth confronts his mother and accuses her of incest, it says, “With such reproaches he rent the heart of his mother and redeemed her to walk in the ways of virtue” which is also more or less what happens in the corresponding scene in Shakespeare, although in so many more words.

The AngryJoeShow reviewed The Northman and complained that the movie was going great until Amleth returned to avenge his father. AngyJoe wanted Amleth to return as a warrior, while Amleth actually disguises himself as a slave, and in fact, initially, this does seem like an odd decision by the writers. However, it makes sense when one considers implications of the fact that the plot draws inspiration from a broader range of old Norse stories. The most famous is Beowulf, and although mostly unremarked, it’s quite clear that the series of nightly disasters that Amleth brings down on his uncle’s farm and warriors are based on the nightly horrors that king Hrothgar meets in his mead-hall as his warriors are slowly picked off by the monster Grendel.

However, while in Beowulf the hero defeats Grendel and his demonic mother, in The Northman the hero becomes the Grendel figure. This inversion is entirely consistent with the film’s essentially 20th-century-values-neutral depiction of the Norse world, trying to show it as it may have been experienced by its inhabitants rather using it as an excuse to make a Marvel-style comic book story.

“Amleth as Grendel figure” sheds light on the relationship between him and his mother. In the important scene, when Amleth announces to his mother that he has returned for vengeance on his uncle, the mother’s first response is to say that Amleth truly is his mother’s son–i.e., she recognizes his bloodthirsty rampage against the farm as something she herself would do. Her bloodline is the animating spirit of his Grendel nature–described by Amleth as “hate”–just as Grendel’s mother in Beowulf attacks Hrothgar’s kingdom after Grendel is killed.

There follows a scene in which Amleth’s mother tries to subdue him with talk of “love”, inviting him to become king to her queen after he kills his uncle. The writers’ inspirations for this incestuous-power-coup invitation are probably various. First of all, they had written themselves into a corner in this scene. On learning of her betrayal, Amleth’s natural reaction is to kill his mother and all her kin, but the plot requires her to keep living, while at the same time, her character is established as devious. Second, there is the incest theme that is an authentic part of the original Amleth story, but has otherwise been discarded in The Northman, as Amleth spends the film planning to free his mother rather than obsessing over her relationship with his uncle. The film tries to preserve and reformulate themes from earlier tellings of the Amleth story. Third, it provides a chance for the movie to pay homage to Star Wars.

Yes, that’s right. Director and writer Eggers is on record as a fan of Star Wars, citing it and Conan the Barbarian as early impacts on his interest in movies, and I think it’s obvious he made references to these films in The Northman. The similarities to Conan the Barbarian are obvious and have been noted by other reviewers: unlike in the medieval and Shakespearean versions of the Amleth story, in which, after his father’s murder, the hero lives with his uncle and plays dumb until he can take his revenge, The Northman’s hero, like the young Conan, is driven into exile after the murder of his father and grows up in exile to become a mighty warrior before seeking his revenge.

The similarities to Star Wars are equally obvious although apparently unremarked. The final sword fight surrounded by volcanic lava parallels Anakin’s final duel with Obi-won Kenobi in episode three of the Star Wars prequels. The scene in which Amleth is left strung up in a barn so that his uncle can finish him off later is reminiscent of Luke hung up in a snow cave by the Wampa in The Empire Strikes Back. In that scene, Luke is able to free himself using the Force, while Amleth is freed by black ravens, which are the traditional companions of the Norse god Odin–that is, Amleth is freed by a mysterious supernatural force that seems to be guiding his destiny.

And in terms of overall plot, the story of an orphaned prince who becomes a great warrior but remains committed to freeing his “enslaved” mother and who finally turns his back on his lover pregnant with twin boy and girl in order to pursue his fate is not so different from… the story of orphaned Anakin who becomes a great Jedi but remains committed to freeing his enslaved mother and who finally turns his back on Padme pregnant with twin boy and girl and finds his doom in his pursuit of his childhood obsession.

Incidentally, Conan and Star Wars are probably not the only pop culture influences Eggers was working with. Notice that in this Vanity Fair piece, Eggers references graphic novels. I think it’s extremely likely he was familiar with Northlanders, a series of comic books that tried to, like The Northman, show an honest depiction of Viking life.

If Eggers is like me, he gave up on the graphic series (the quality wasn’t there), but the first volume, “Sven Returns,” is also a Viking-age retelling of the Hamlet/Amleth story, while a later volume, “The Plague Widow,” is set in the east, Rus-land (Viking-age Russia), as is the second act of The Northman. But I digress. What has all this pop culture to do with the incestuous seduction scene?

What Amleth’s mother proposes is that he kill his uncle and the uncle’s children, marry her, and together they would rule the kingdom. For a Star Wars fan like Eggers, this inevitably recalls the famous scene in The Empire Strikes Back in which Darth Vader says to Luke, “you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. Join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.” Prior to this scene in Star Wars, Luke has been under the impression that his father and the villain are two different people, and they are suddenly revealed to him to be the same person. This is the same plot point of the scene in The Northman–Amleth realizes that his mother and “the villain” are not two different people but the same person. Then, in both films, after the hero’s realization, the villain tries to play on the hero’s familial affection to manipulate him. Of course, this is 10th-century Iceland, not a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, so the villain’s proposal necessitates a married lord and lady—an excellent pretext to include the reformulated theme of incest found in the original story.

How sympathetic are Darth Vader and Grendel’s mother? I suppose your answer to this question might depend on how sympathetic you think Satan is in Paradise Lost.

Rick and Rob have further confusions, too. Part of their consideration that Amleth’s mother may be a sympathetic figure is their interpretation of a scene at the beginning of the movie when Amleth’s uncle is carrying off his mother. In the big reveal scene, Amleth says that but, but he saw his mother screaming while being carried off. No, no, says his mother, she wasn’t screaming but laughing. Rick and Rob don’t know what to make of this scene because the audience does indeed see Amleth’s mother screaming. Rick thinks she really was screaming and that her later statements to Amleth are a kind of rationalization, perhaps a kind of 10th-century Stockholm Syndrome.

But this is a conclusion that derives from completely misconstruing the overall meaning of the movie. As Eggers and Skarsgard mention in the VF piece above, The Northman went to extreme lengths to be as “historically accurate” as possible, down using actual wood rather than polymers in the construction of set props. Yet, Odin’s ravens perform miracles, the Valkyries ride the skies, and the plot is driven forward by soothsayings and prophecies. What kind of film is that? In reality, The Northman is neither a Richard Attenborough-style look at 10th-century Vikings nor a sword and sorcery fantasy movie. It is a movie that explores the experience of our 10th-century forebears.

The most quintessential example of this is the climactic end of the movie, when Amleth, killed by iron, is taken to Valhalla by the Valkyrie. Is the movie showing us a fictional universe with Valkyries? No, Amleth lives in our universe, yet neither does it imply that Amleth is delusional. What we see is what Amleth understands. The movement to the white light at the point of death is attested in many modern medical cases of near-death or re-animation. But Amleth does not see a Christian heaven with Jesus’s embrace, he sees the path to Valhalla. Amleth is a man of our universe and yet also a man of a spirit-haunted world of Norse gods and goddesses, and the movie asks us to see reality through his eyes.

The scene that makes this most clear is his visit to a Viking king’s burial mound in which he is to find the sword he can use to kill his uncle. Combining visual elements of Indiana Jones repelling down to the map room and Luke Skywalker confronting Vader in Dagoba’s cave, we see Amleth confront a barrow-wight in a scene that could have been ripped out of Tolkien. But then we see the scene repeated again, and no undead to be seen, Amleth is a simple grave robber. This is a kind of violation of “the fourth wall” that invites us to reflect on Amleth’s experience.

When Amleth’s mother is carried away by his uncle, can a 10th-century man expect her to be laughing? Can her son Amleth see her laughing? By asking the question whether her screaming is some kind of message to the audience, Rick and Rob fundamentally misconstrue the method of the film.

There is more we can say about The Northman as a feminist tale, however. There are several points in the movie at which Amleth’s mother describes him and his father as simple. Like the incest theme, which is present in the earlier versions of the Hamlet/Amleth story but used in a new way in The Northman, Amleth’s simple-mindedness is present but with different purpose. In Hamlet, Shakespeare has made Halmet’s mental state a centerpiece of the plot, while in the medieval tales, Amleth acts a fool in order to escape his uncle’s suspicion. In The Northman, this lack of shrewdness is a part of Amleth’s dedication to his traditions, to his visions, and to his sense of fate.

This sense of fate is only challenged by the two female characters in the movie. Olga, Amleth’s lover, pleads for him to escape his fate by choosing to run away with her. (Need I point out that Luke and Leia have this conversation in the Ewok village?) This is a naive view of choice but a pure one born of Olga’s loyalty and love. On the other hand, Amleth’s mother represents a demonic view of choice. She hates Amleth and his father for their steadfastness and stubbornness, and she loves Amleth’s uncle who is guileful and malleable, who refuses to accept his place in society. Indeed, Amleth’s mother is so covetous of choice that she rejects her son’s love just because she was submitted to fate in his conception rather choosing his conception herself. Finally, in contradistinction to Olga’s plea born of love for Amleth to flee his fate through choosing to live with her, his mother tempts him to flee his fate by choosing to live with her in incest, a plea born of self-interest and, likely, deceit.

So, we can see that the feminine is examined through two divisions in the film. First, Amleth and his father represent a masculine element aligned with submitting to fate. They are devotees of Odin, the Aesir god associated with battle and death, while the mother and uncle worship the god Freyr, a Vanir god, a fertility god associated with good harvests, pleasure, and the horse cult. Warriors versus farmers, battle versus comfort, and acceptance versus rejection of fate. Second, Olga and the mother represent different expressions of womanhood. Olga, willing to sacrifice herself out of loyalty, comes to Amleth in a “virginal” state, having put off defilement by the uncle, while Amleth’s mother, the betrayer, comes to Amleth like a whore, offering intimacy in exchange for Amleth’s protection. While both women seek to draw Amleth away from his fate, Olga is unwilling to compromise herself to avoid her own fate, while the mother will degrade herself seeking to avoid it.

The Virgin-Whore dichotomy is not unknown to feminist theory. It is presented in Amleth’s mind as the dichotomy between the mother of his youthful assumptions and the mother he confronts as a man, and it is presented to the audience through the character Olga as the social judgement of the 10th century against the mother. Is the film a feminist critique of Vikings through a sympathetic character in Amleth’s mother? The Northman instead asks us to consider a broader question about life from the 10th-century perspective. Fate is not the opposite of choice. Fate is the 10th century’s critique of choice: dead by iron, we will meet again.

ADDDENDUM: After writing the above, I came across a YouTube review of The Northman by Dr. Jackson Crawford, an Old Norse language expert. First, he claims many reviews have mentioned connections with Beowulf but that he doesn’t see any. I haven’t seen any review other than his and mine that mentions Beowulf, and I disagree with him–I think there are clear borrowings from Beowulf as I described above. Second, he disliked the movie because he thought it catered to people who had a fantasy of living as a Viking rather than presenting the very foreign-to-us ways of thinking and speaking found in Old Norse literature. Essentially, he says, the movie is anachronistic because it presents a world we can relate to rather than capturing the experience of estrangement one gets from reading Old Norse. This seems to refute what I wrote about the movie, which is that it tries to capture for us what the experience–the subjective experience of those people–of living in Viking times might be like. On one hand, I agree with Crawford that the movie does not try to simply capture the experience of reading Old Norse and put it into film format. However, I think that is understandable. We live in a world post-invention-of-the-novel and post-stage-drama. Our relationship to storytelling is entirely different from that of the Vikings. But an important point about this is that it is not Eggers who is engaging in anachronism by trying to capture the Viking world on film, it is Crawford is who is engaging in anachronism through his experience of the foreignness of Old Norse. Real Vikings wouldn’t have noticed anything strange about Old Norse literature, and feeling that that literature is truly from another world is not to draw closer to those people. The Northman breaks “the fourth wall”–I think in several places, but at least in the barrow-wight scene–so it does not pretend to be a piece of the Viking world. Instead, it takes advantage of modern archaeology and inserts that into modern story-telling methods–it attempts to show us how old Vikings might experience the world based on our re-creation of the old Viking world, which is a very different thing from showing us how old Vikings might experience the world based on looking at the Viking world through modern eyes and believing we can’t relate to it because “modernism”, or whatever it is that Dr. Crawford identifies with.