AVENGER'S ENDGAME

DIRECTOR ROBERT EGGERS REVEALS HOW HE MADE THE NORTHMAN, HIS BRUTAL, FANTASY-TINGED VIKING REVENGE MOVIE

- IAN BERRIMAN

WHAT DOES THE PHRASE “Viking movie” bring to mind? Perhaps bearded men in horned helmets, swigging back tankards of mead and throwing maidens over their shoulder as they treat conquest and pillage like so much rambunctious merriment.

If so, Robert Eggers’s latest deep dive into a historical moment (after The Witch, set in 17th century New England, and The Lighthouse, his film about 19th century lighthouse keepers) should bring you up short. The Northman is a brutal tale, and also one which – by bringing to life the supernatural aspects of Viking belief – has a fascinating fantastical dimension.

It came about thanks to the enthusiasm of his leading man, Alexander Skarsgård. “I was never very interested in Vikings,” the director confesses to SFX. “I much preferred medieval knights, and had a preconceived notion that Viking culture was not sophisticated. My wife was into Icelandic sagas, and had been encouraging me to get into them, but I didn’t.

“Then, several years ago, as hipsters were wont to do we took a trip to Iceland, and the landscapes were very inspiring. I thought, ‘Alright, I should make a Viking movie’. A couple of years after that, Alexander called me to have coffee in the East Village, and said that he’d been trying to make a Viking movie with a producer friend of mine. So I said, ‘I have one!’ I didn’t really, but I knew that I could do a Viking revenge story.”