Valhalla Rising: (2009. dir: Nicolas Winding Refn) Gorgeous, slow, inscrutable, mesmerizing Viking movie about a one-eyed, invincible bad-ass who sees visions of the future. Early on someone asks him (rhetorically, since he does not speak), "Who are you?" At which I laughed and thought, "Viking Movie, One-Eyed Badassed Seer of Visions... He's Odin!" Turns out I was wrong. He's just your run-of-the-mill invincible, visionary warrior, which, granted, is rather wonderful if you're not expecting gods. That said, the film has so sober an air of its own importance that it feels (although I know from interviews it is not) like propaganda for Forn Sidr. When One-Eye makes his sacrifice in the end, it feels Arthurian, like the great hero is promising to return in Denmark's greatest hour of need.
I want to say the film is redolent of a Malickian nature-mysticism, but without Malick's joie-de-vivre and clarity of purpose. There's an immensity to it, however, built largely of silence and a thick, well-used soundscape. The music is a drum-heavy brand of doom-rock, and just right. The violence is well photographed, slow and unflinching but also unromanticized, not slicked-up as is the custom amongst unscrupulous editors these days. When One-Eye eviscerates a fellow, you can practically smell the meat, feel the steam as the hot innards hit the cool Northern air.
Mads Mikkelsen as One-Eye is, as always, a force of nature. He proved in King Arthur that he's one of those rare actors whose charisma communicates itself even in long shot. Now he's proved it communicates itself even when he's mute and sporting only one eye. Amazing man.
Fool's Gold: (2008. dir: Andy Tennant) There are three things a romantic comedy needs in order to engage properly: chemistry between its leads, believable but credibly overcome obstacles to their love, and a plotline (ie: the pursuit of the Earl Williams news-story in His Girl Friday) on which they can focus while they're falling in love, or rather while they're working out their differences, because in this genre love generally happens at first sight and often, as in this one, before the film begins.
Fool's Gold gets a bad rap, which flummoxes me. In this age overstuffed with shallow and unremarkable love stories, McConaughey and Hudson not only share an extraordinary chemistry, they also have in common a spot-on sense of comic timing and the kind of affable, un-vain carriage of their considerable physical charms which allows us to love rather than envy them. The script, although it often dives headlong into silliness, presents a fully credible emotional journey from personality-crossed young love into mature acceptance. The low comedy (and there is that) is carried off with a good-natured heartiness so that three-stooges moments (like when she borrows a golf club from an old man on a park bench with which to hit her lover/nemesis in the head) are actually funny instead of just absurd or offensive. My boyfriend was making dinner while I watched, and whenever I laughed he'd say what'd I miss? and I kept having to say, "It's all in the timing. It wouldn't be funny if I told it," and that's unquestionably a tribute to some damn fine acting and some damn fine editing. The other thing it has is the treasure-hunting story, a rollicking good one, one the writers obviously enjoyed writing.
Everyone likes Kate Hudson, and that's as it should be, but I don't quite understand why people as a rule don't like McConaughey. Look: Dazed and Confused, Lone Star, A Time To Kill, Frailty, Newton Boys, Reign of Fire, Tropic Thunder? That's an interesting resume. Sure, he's got some probable dogs in there (who's going to watch Failure to Launch to find out if it's actually as bad as they say? a braver human than I), but do me a favor and give the surfer-boy another chance, will you?
the Skeleton Key: (2005. dir: Iain Softley)
And speaking of Kate Hudson...
This is a reconsideration. I reviewed this movie already, back in 2008, one of the first on this blog, in fact, and I short-changed it. It moved too slowly for my taste then, but once you know the ending (a great ending), the second viewing is completely enjoyable, and the script is a very fine venture. Plus, the acting is first-tier among the foursome of leads (Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard, John Hurt), the atmosphere of Terrebonne Parish saturates the film until you can feel the sultry virtually coating your skin, and it's that rare beast, a hoodoo picture which has a genuine feel to the hoodoo. The sound of it is full and haunting: scratchy old blues and voodoo records, menacing thumpings and scratchings and thunderstorms. It's still a little slow, but it makes up for it in a thousand other ways.
