Valhalla Rising (2009) - Experimental at all costs - 6/10 (11/04/11)

I really happen to like experimental and surreal movies and I was looking forward to watch this flick. It's an eerie and dark movie settled in many untouched and dark landscapes and featuring brutal, pitiless and stupid men that work against each other in order to try to survive in the wilderness of the New World. The movie works a lot with symbols and images. Mads Mikkelsen is the main actor and doesn't say a single word throughout the whole movie. His unwilling companions also don't talk very much and only the most stupid ones create a few dialogues now and then.

What is this film about? That's somewhat difficult to say. The movie is settled many centuries ago during the "christianisation" of Scandinavia. It's the story of a slave that has to fight for his masters against others in order to survive and is one day able to free himself. Instead of seeking for immediate vengeance, he meets a different Viking tribe that wants to head for the paradise in a small ship. The tensions rises quickly as they don't arrive and get lost on the shores of a new and unknown continent. Lost in an unknown place, hunted by Indians and isolated from food, the voyagers all die one by one while only the free slave seems to be able to face destiny and commits a crucial sacrifice in the very end by showing that he is after all a human being.

The movie offers some space to a multitude of interpretations. While it seems to be a violent gore flick in the beginning, the mood changes into a short suspense before a survival and adventure part kicks off that ends with a philosophical showdown worth of a good drama. The movie shows some strange visions that the slave without a name has and focuses on the dark landscapes that seem to be parallel related to the desperate events of the movie itself. Especially the visual part of this movie is very well done. The development of the movie is slow paced and unusual and may not addict many people. It reminds me sometimes of David Lynch's "Eraserhead" and has also to do with human fears, visions and mistakes. Contrary to the Lynch movie, the character has got a development as he is a pitiless murderer in the beginning and turns out to be a courageous and emotional saviour in the end which I really liked.

Normally, the visual style, the experimental art and the multitude of styles would guarantee a voting of about eight points but I had to rate this flick down because it has too many lengths and as most of the supporting characters don't have much development. There is also a true lack of suspense, action or drama apart of the boat passage and the fateful ending. The mysterious atmosphere and dark vibes aren't able to carry the other parts entirely and one gets the impression that movie seems to go nowhere in the most boring way before we come to the end. This movie doesn't do a sacrifice to try to entertain the mainstream public and is experimental at all costs while some more gripping and high paced scenes would have been possible and could have enlightened this weird flick. The director prefers to miss those chances and addresses to a very small public that surely adores the sense of the movie while the people out of this focus may have a lot of difficulties with it.

To keep it short, this movie is for those who like visually stunning and slow paced movies with an "avantgarde" style and some experimental influences. Even though I gave a rather low rating from an objective point of view, I must admit from a subjective point of view that this movie is worth to be tried out and watched several times to forge your own interpretation of the events.