Nicolas Winding Refn films are stories and genres we are very familiar with, but like any distinctive filmmaker, he has found a way of showing them to us in an unexpected way. Valhalla Rising takes the high adventure Viking film and turned it into a somber meditation on Religion, myth and violence.

The story is kept very simple. We are introduced to a slave of unknown origin aptly named One Eye (we have to assume he lost the eye in mortal combat) who is used as a pit fighter for a roaming band of Celtic warriors in what appears to be the Scottish Highlands. He never speaks, he just has prophetic bloody visions of violence that take place shortly after. His only human interaction is with a young boy who is in charge of feeding him.

After a glorious bloody escape One eye wanders the hills with the only soul he allowed to survivor, the boy. He stumbles upon a group of soldiers on their way to the Crusades. He joins their group, but their ship becomes trapped in a fog bank, which the Crusaders believe is a curse brought on by One Eye. The fog lifts and they find themselves in America being hunted by Native Americans. After the group members suffer various mental breakdowns and are murdered, One Eye sacrifices himself to spare the young boys life in the final scene of the film.

The sparse story is a skeleton to allow us to linger inside the skin of a terrifying man, in a terrifying world. One Eye expresses no emotion. He hardly bats an eyelash. He seems at home and in his natural environment when he is killing. When asked where he came from, the boy responds “He was brought up from Hell.” Refn’s camera lingers on faces and concerned expressions and forces us to think for ourselves about who these characters are and what are they experiencing. A palpable sense of looming dread, but we only feel that intuitively it is suggested by the craft of the film and not an incessant need to tell us. He trusts the audience.

Most films would trouble us with lots of exposition about where he came from, why is he here, what is his goal, but Refn respects us enough to dispatch with that. There is very little talking and what is said doesn’t help move a plot along, but does add to the beguiling mystery our characters live in. The film lives viscerally as we experience the nature of violence physically in brutal bursts of gore but then subsides and haunts us in lingering shots of fog enveloped country sides. The majestic forests of America are as terrifying as the brute strength and killer instinct of One Eye.

The film can be experienced on different levels. We can lose ourselves in these small men at odds with the natural world that in fact dictates their fates. We can think about who One Eye is, what circumstances brought him here? Is he a captured warrior, or perhaps some elemental being that lives beyond our understanding? What is the role of religion in the four very different cultures we are exposed to and how does it shape the world of our characters?

It’s really not for everyone. It’s a very masculine film. Not in some cliche Skinemax sort of way, but in the way that it cuts to the core of the nature of men and the worlds they occupy. It exists in that world of masculine cool that houses Michael Madsen, Takeshi Kitano and Lee Marvin. It doesn’t deny you the things little boys and grown men love in stories. It’s not intellectual, but it 2. asks you to think. It’s filmmaking from the gut.

- Reviewed by Chris Sacks