![]() Worse still, she begged Fjölnir to also kill her son who was then but a boy. “I see you’ve inherited your father’s simpleness,” she mocks before laughing at her son and revealing it was she who convinced Fjölnir to slay his own brother. At first she tries to ease his anger through a mother’s love, and when that doesn’t work she tries a different tact: she becomes brutally honest. In the most perverse scene in the movie, Amleth finally confronts his mother in her bedroom and attempts to convince her to run away with him. Take for example, the relationship between Amleth and his ultimately not-so-dear mother, Gudrún. And by going back to that earlier, more medieval telling Eggers, co-writer Sjón, and Skarsgård (who is also a producer on The Northman) were able to establish an easy through-line for the audience to follow, even as their movie deconstructed that line in order to examine elements of this story that are far more psychologically debased and primal. The story of Amleth is the inspiration of Hamlet-an anglicized rewording that moves a single letter from the end of the prince’s name to the beginning. So it’s a really ancient tale, and it leant itself beautifully to the type of movie we wanted to make, because it’s a timeless, classic revenge story.”Īll of which is true. “But Saxo Grammaticus most likely based Prince Amleth of Jutland, which we based our movie on, on an even older Icelandic saga from the ninth or 10th century. “Shakespeare based his Hamlet on Saxo Grammaticus’ Prince Amleth from the 12th century,” Skarsgård tells us in a separate interview, citing a Danish historian and theologian whose tale of the vengeful nephew prince is the oldest complete version of this story we have today. However, the actual source material is far older. It informs everything from William Shakespeare’s greatest play, Hamlet, to The Lion King. Indeed, Eggers told us months ago that he felt liberated to indulge his world-building eccentricities in the Viking saga because he knew audiences would be inherently familiar with the structure of a story in which the son avenges a murdered father, who in turn had died by his uncle’s hand. Nicole Kidman’s Queen Mother Who Is Not Left to HeavenĮggers and his collaborators have not been coy about how The Northman is intentionally descended from a tale that predates Shakespeare. However, as with his finales for The Witch and The Lighthouse, there is more going on than meets the eye about Amleth’s fate and why his end is a happy one, if only for him and his culture. This is the end of almost every revenger’s tragedy and it is in-keeping with the ancient Hamlet tale that The Northman takes inspiration from. Now their corpses are likewise left to molder, unwept and unsung.Īs with Robert Eggers’ other two films, the actual plot mechanics are quite clear. Beneath their vainglorious ends also lies the body of a woman they each claim to love, Gudrún ( Nicole Kidman): the mother Amleth swore to avenge but instead slaughtered alongside her youngest son Gunnar (Elliott Rose). However, the prince without a kingdom is also slain, stabbed through what I believe is the heart and left to simmer by a lake of fire that both men recognize as Hel. But was any of it worthwhile?īefore the credits roll, Uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang) is well and truly dead by his nephew’s hand his head cleaved clean off with a massive stroke of Amleth’s arm. I will avenge you, father! I will save you, mother! I will kill you, Fjölnir! By the time The Northman concludes, Alexander Skarsgård’s wayward Viking prince has accomplished two out of the three. This article contains massive THE NORTHman spoilers. ![]()
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