Valhalla Rising in the News
PRINT:
McCLATCHY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICE (syndicated to 20+ regional dailies)
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/29/2479865/dvd-whats-available-this-week.html
“Anyone who's seen ‘Pusher,’ the 1999 Danish drug-dealer drama by director Nicolas Winding Refn, knows "normal" is not in that filmmaker's vocabulary. Now comes ‘Valhalla Rising,’ an acid trip of a Viking tale, to reiterate that fact. Mads Mikkelsen (who had a smaller role in ‘Pusher’) stars as One Eye, an aptly named prisoner kept chained to a pole and brought out periodically to fight other gladiators to the death. When he kills his captors and escapes, he hooks up with a group of warriors headed to the Crusades - but his freedom proves as savage and as strange as his captivity. Refn captures harsh landscapes, brutal in their beauty, in this epic drama. The film is in English (though One Eye is wordless) and is not rated. It will be released Tuesday with a list price of $24.98.”
BALTIMORE CITY PAPER
http://citypaper.com/film/the-trip-1.1067962
"As a story, Valhalla is frustratingly enigmatic. As a cinematic immersion in one director’s hallucination, however, it’s a consistently riveting experience. Whole scenes and chunks of it speak with the logic of cave paintings: You’re not sure exactly what they’re trying to say, but they’re burrowing themselves deep into the brain. And single images cling to the retina: a man, bleeding out, kneeling atop a hillside contemplating the world he see before him for the last time; a man’s hand gripping air as you hear him being disemboweled; One Eye stacking stones with an unfathomable sense of purpose. Just what Refn might be trying to say with this movie never really gets articulated—in fact, One Eye’s muteness makes him a fascinating vessel to project meanings onto—but, as with Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, very few movies try to take you to wherever the hell it is Valhalla Rising ventures."
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleyindependent/s_711566.html
“Director Nicolas Winding Refn's film centers on a group of Vikings charting a path to the Holy Land, but a wrong turn shipwrecks them in the New World. It’s a place that has these battle-bound Vikings getting knocked off one at a time by the inhabitants. At the center of this story is a Viking named One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) who’s lived as a slave and been forced to kill in competitions for a Norse holder. Once One-Eye escapes, he brutally dispatches of his captors and moves on with a young Viking boy named Are (Maarten Stevenson) to join a group headed for the Holy Land. The sequences of violence in this film are cranked up, but it stands as a quiet movie that makes use of colorful cinematography and bits of symbolism. Mikkelsen, a star worth remembering, presents a in-depth character — despite not having any lines.”
DENTON RECORD-CHRONICLE
http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/entertainment/stories/DRC_dvd_1128.271e6fb20.html
"Valhalla Rising (***1/2) Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale) stars as the silent One Eye, a feral Danish warrior who destroys anyone who gets near him. He joins a group headed to the Crusades but unintentionally dragged into other conflicts. The incident-filled journey boasts exquisite photography and an ominous sense of menace. Strangely compelling."
WEB:
DVD VERDICT
http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/valhallarising.php
"It is highly successful as a one-of-a-kind, freak-out version of its subgenre that I can't recommend enough. It's engrossing, entertaining, thoughtful, touching and more than a little trippy—the sort of film that makes me love films all the more.
The DVD itself sports a beautiful transfer with slight grain and brief bouts of pixel clustering, while the 5.1 audio mix channels a paranoid rock soundtrack and incredibly sharp sound effects to couch jumping results."
REAL MOVIE NEWS
http://realmovienews.com/reviews/discs/4542
"Mads Mikkelsen stars as the mostly silent protagonist, a scarred warrior held as a slave. With only one eye remaining, the boy slave assigned to care for the slave forced to fight other men names him One Eye. When he kills his captors and escapes, the boy follows One Eye. Soon they join a group of Christian men on their way to fight in the Crusades. Instead the men drift into the New World and find themselves facing a native enemy. The brutality of Refn’s film is astounding, while the quiet nature of other portions along with the surreal beauty of the cinematography contrasts this violence. And despite all of this, it is somehow still a simple film.”
DREAD CENTRAL
http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/41179/dvd-and-blu-ray-releases-november-30-2010-dead-nation-twilight-eclipse-vampires-suck
"Valhalla Rising is a brutally beautiful Viking film with international star Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, Clash of the Titans) as One Eye, a chained prisoner forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of his captors. When One Eye escapes, he stumbles upon a group of warriors headed to the Crusades. But fate has something else in store as the men drift into the New World, where savages stalk them one by one in increasingly violent ways. Is One Eye an avenging angel or just the guiltiest of them all? The answers can be found in this ruthless, hallucinatory, one of a kind journey."
IFC (.com)
http://www.ifc.com/news/2010/11/fantasia-dvds-for-november-29t.php
Arguably one of the most visually striking depictions of Viking life ever forged, "Vahalla Rising" reunites Refn with his "Pusher" star Mads Mikkelsen for this elegiac journey across the Scottish Highlands interrupted by disembowlings, bludgeonings and beheadings at the hands of a warrior named One-Eye (Mikkelsen) in 1000 AD.
