S3E19.5: The Northman
Added 2024-05-16 08:47:29 +0000 UTCAfter watching Beowulf, we decided to take a look at another recent film about the Vikings. A film lauded as an extremely accurate depiction of a 80-IQ ripped guy eating shit constantly in service of righting a wrong that was already righted while he wasn't paying attention. Is it fascist? Maybe. Maybe it's good though, ever thought of that?
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Comments
I disliked this movie.
xandala117
2025-11-04 11:20:53 +0000 UTCImagine calling your son "Gooner". Kind of like you're setting him up for it.
NowhereMan661
2025-10-28 20:04:04 +0000 UTCVinland saga season 2 does the themes of this movie quite a bit better. Watched it just as I was figuring out I was a women the whole time, that season really did a number on me
Eris Domar
2024-07-25 07:34:01 +0000 UTCI know it's a TV show, so it will never be an episode, but I'd love to see KJB's take on Vinland Saga. A very similar opening premise, but a lot more interesting in its conclusions.
Apparition
2024-06-17 04:24:50 +0000 UTCIt would be like if they showed the islamic terrorist at the end of a movie sees he gets 72 virgins inspite of how good the poorly sourced that Hadith is
Knathaniel C
2024-06-02 23:51:38 +0000 UTCAh yes, KJB reviews Bjørn Supremacist
The Arueshalae Table Building Society
2024-06-01 01:39:12 +0000 UTCy'all should do a mad max mini season and watch all 5 now that furiosa is out! i think the older movies would be especially interesting to hear you talk about.
Ysa
2024-05-30 03:41:28 +0000 UTCI'm not offended - but I will claim that Sweden is, in fact, not a foreign country. Don't know where November got that idea from.
Lo Björnsdotter
2024-05-29 12:40:03 +0000 UTCKinda racist, kinda racist. Guess I had it coming for choosing my name though!
Lo Björnsdotter
2024-05-29 12:38:39 +0000 UTCI feel like a good follow up would be 13th warrior, underrated movie, contains a lot of the hosts fixations
theunderwolf
2024-05-24 23:38:38 +0000 UTCBeen mulling over this one more. I think this is one of those occassions where I probably appreciate the film more than the hosts because 'if you believe it it' s real' somewhat chimes with my own religious-spiritual beliefs. I don't personally believe in Valhalla but since I DO believe in a life after death it feels intellectually dishonest of me not to mention dickish to say 'nah you're' wrong' to someone with a different conception of the afterlife.
Ross Nolan
2024-05-24 00:55:51 +0000 UTCThat scene was based in Ibn Fadlan's account of a Rus funeral. There, she was described as a slave girl who was kept drunk/drugged for the days leading up to the sacrifice
Ben Sculfor
2024-05-23 02:09:24 +0000 UTCI really liked this one but I think I'll be noping out of 'The Wonder' with it's worship of the rational Victorian Englishwoman stranded among us backwards superstitious Paddies.
Ross Nolan
2024-05-22 17:39:30 +0000 UTCThe most historically accurate film is ERIK THE VIKING.
Greg Dean
2024-05-22 00:59:37 +0000 UTCI absolutely want to eee Monkey Man!
Cate Kneale
2024-05-21 00:55:05 +0000 UTCBe gay, do seidr.
Cate Kneale
2024-05-21 00:54:24 +0000 UTCHell, if you wanted to not have it get appropriated, you could have made him gay! When it's established that they understand homosexuality but treat Bottom as a slur worthy of dueling to the death, make him gay! Have him die pointlessly trying to be manly and violent, no Valhalla, while his boyfriend who IS a bottom keeps asking Amleth "is that what you think of ME?" And eventually leaves Amleth and is happier for it.
-Kris-
2024-05-20 04:18:42 +0000 UTCI *would* like an extended cut with Odin and the Valkyrie trying to help Anya Taylor-Joy lift him onto the horse
-Kris-
2024-05-20 04:00:38 +0000 UTCThree ducks, Huey, Dewey and Louis, descend upon Stellan Skarsgard, righteous avatar of Donald's wrath, to peck him free
-Kris-
2024-05-20 03:56:59 +0000 UTCentirely possible to read the ending as "he's going to valhalla…which is *bad* because that's him just entirely subsuming himself into an endless cycle of violence, even more, forever" but that requires the same sort of christianizing turn that, ironically, beowulf the poem takes
God's Eepiest Soldier
2024-05-20 01:16:27 +0000 UTCI also expected a lot more Hamlet comparisons, the things it and the Amleth adaptation say about masculinity are very different. My the Klingon version was closer to this.
Totally Useless
2024-05-19 23:31:01 +0000 UTCI had a Certified Abigail Moment with this one where for like half the runtime I thought we were going to go in a completely different direction where Amleth would kill Fjölnir, or fail to kill him and escape, only to be killed at the end by Olga as her revenge upon him for her town. Since the moment she recognised Amleth as a northman on the boat I assumed she was working with him for now and planning to kill him later, and he would die dishonourably at the end as a result of the violence that he perpetrated. And then realised oh it looks like instead she's uh. actually falling in love with the man who slaughtered her town with his boys and presumably killed her family? Ok I guess?
Tas
2024-05-18 23:21:56 +0000 UTCBy the way if you want to read about an interesting Norse woman, check out Aud the Deep-Minded
Noblesse Oblahaj
2024-05-18 17:45:27 +0000 UTCIf you would like some fiction of a Norse flavor with interesting female characters, check out Joe Abercrombie's Half A King trilogy. Wonderful stuff. Even all of the combat has narrative weight and character development.
Noblesse Oblahaj
2024-05-18 16:38:47 +0000 UTCThe only thin Brunhild is Bugs Bunny
Helen Swinney
2024-05-18 16:36:13 +0000 UTCReading this comment made me remember the Steve Harvey wrote a book of relationship advice called "act like a lady, think like a man" and it got turned into a movie
Andrew Dunn
2024-05-18 14:23:23 +0000 UTCi posted this joke before hearing Devon express their hatred for a Letterboxd review with the same joke, i will now be Steve Harveying myself in penance
Jack Connell
2024-05-18 14:04:49 +0000 UTCI get isekaid into the past and my Norse father keeps trying to get me to avenge his death with me just looking him dead in the eyes “If you’re so sure you’re gonna be murdered this might be a good time to ask yourself why. Like I’m not avenging a guy who probably deserved it.”
James Cézanne-Taipale
2024-05-18 07:09:45 +0000 UTCAlso, as noted in Lindsay Ellis's video on Nazi satire- Nazis will watch stuff like this, or American History X, and only see the bits where the dude is badass, ignoring the parts where he looks like an idiot.
Raymond Price
2024-05-18 04:13:51 +0000 UTCValkyries evoking Freya, ie the love against the revenge, bloodshed & deceit if Odin. As for a factotum god: Thor As to masculinity in the movie: it shows something of the limits of imagination? Like how flatly we conceptualize the past. Like someone so odin-y like... he needed to be more gay
Gilded Dragon
2024-05-18 03:21:19 +0000 UTCthank you for this important update.
Maggie Wauklyn
2024-05-17 21:46:57 +0000 UTCIt is with great sadness that I report today the Final Dinkster daily was uploaded. The channel owner traveled to the actual spot in the real world and did the bit. Much like 9/11 we now live in a post-Dinkster world.
Camoose
2024-05-17 20:20:33 +0000 UTCSome of us have to use the metro
Cam
2024-05-17 18:51:00 +0000 UTCI'm going to be honest, whilst I support Eggers delving deep into, and inhabiting, historical practice, raiding the North East of England has led to Whitley Bay and Cullercoats Metro stations being destroyed by raiders
Cam
2024-05-17 18:50:42 +0000 UTCI love a lot of aspects of this film. I just with the level of funding, historical knowledge, and just talent went to projects doing interesting this with race in Medieval settings. There's a no budget 2007 Beowulf adaptation that race bent the protagonist, which allowed the film to think about European-African interactions during this era. Most of the crew and cast weren't professionally trained. I'm still not sure how filming Beowulf worked as a fundraiser for cancer research. But it is such an interesting idea for an adaption that would have benefited so much if it had any funding
Emily Kugler
2024-05-17 17:49:16 +0000 UTCI watched this for the first time yesterday, and I just wanted Amleth to die with visible regret. Instead, he realized his family line was safe, his daughter was going to be a leader, and then he fucked off to warrior heaven, a place that sounds terrible. I also really want more of an exploration of "What if Hamlet's dad was actually a tyrant and his uncle was doing a good thing by getting rid of the bastard and taking his throne?"
Elaine
2024-05-17 17:11:21 +0000 UTCWell they're not the only folks who can watch a film and favour the villains, hehe.
iaguz
2024-05-17 02:16:49 +0000 UTCI'm dropping this here in case anyone is curious about the costumes in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBkLsbDrlNI&t=782s
Maggie Wauklyn
2024-05-17 00:28:53 +0000 UTCAs an antidote to the ascension to Valhalla ending, I think the manga Vinland Saga had a great way to engage with and deconstruct the idea. The protagonist has a nightmare about Valhalla where he sees a blasted wasteland ankle-deep in blood where mutilated corpses fight endlessly over nothing. Very to the point about the oxymoron "warrior's heaven". Vinland Saga is kind of what the hosts wanted out of this movie, with an extremely similar premise that radically diverges when its protagonist starts to question his culture. (I also read it as a roman a clef critique of bushido and Imperial Japan.)
OvO Hoot
2024-05-16 23:57:45 +0000 UTCNorse by Norsewest
Nick Gully
2024-05-16 22:44:59 +0000 UTCThe thing is, it’s like American History X being popular with Neo-Nazis despite it showing them failing and eating shit all the time, it’s cause they love seeing Nazi shit and they’re not really good at media literacy
John Leavitt
2024-05-16 22:27:05 +0000 UTCFirst, Alexander Skarsgaard was Iceman, now he's back as the Northman Film is 1000% fash. Which isn't to say it's poorly made, bad or even all that problematic. But it does mean if Eggers was trying to reclaim vikings from the ultra right wing then I feel like he couldn't have missed any harder. I dunno what actual fascists think of this film but im guessing they're on board with the film where an incredibly jacked white guy exerts his will, strength, cunning and ruthlessness for 2 hours straight and dies in a cool, meaningful way. And I'd argue he shouldn't worry about it. White nationalists are gonna appropriate anything with the aesthetics they enjoy and find the meaning they want. You can't stop them from doing this, they're just gonna do it. You can make a film where the vikings are soy, gay and poc losers who all eventually convert to Christianity and they'll just not watch it while still holding true to whichever part of the viking age they like. You can't convince them otherwise through the medium of film. Don't worry about it bro, just keep making good movies.
iaguz
2024-05-16 21:39:42 +0000 UTCI would like to point out Beowulf means Bee Wolf, which is a way to describe a Bear if you've only seen Wolves before. So now imagine Ray Winstone as Winnie-the-Pooh.
Strike3
2024-05-16 19:10:51 +0000 UTCI really love this movie. Thank you for watching it.
Saint Muerte
2024-05-16 18:54:50 +0000 UTCThis film was co-written between Eggars and an Icelandic writer/poet named Sjón. I *highly* recommend three novellas of Sjón’s, THE BLUE FOX, FROM THE MOUTH OF THE WHALE, and THE WHISPERING MUSE. Great Left on Read fodder, and just plum weird books.
David Schuller
2024-05-16 18:23:46 +0000 UTCI thought that girl got sacrificed because she was wife of the killed Viking. And she was that enthusiastic because she was reuniting her husband.
Totally Useless
2024-05-16 17:35:56 +0000 UTCMy big take away from this movie was that Fjölnir's goons are absolutely Ride or Die. Their boi gets kicked out of his kingdom and rather than finding a new king to hench for they move to Iceland to become a sheepfarmer's guards.
Ctolm
2024-05-16 17:19:59 +0000 UTC"The two crows of Odin, Statler and Waldorf..."
Sammi
2024-05-16 17:19:37 +0000 UTCAwesome to hear another installment of Dr November Kelly, Norse expert! And therefore Palestine must be free from the river to the sea.
Jason Young
2024-05-16 17:07:16 +0000 UTCmen will literally abandon their witch gf and fight their uncle by a lake of fire at the Gates of Hel than go to therapy
Jack Connell
2024-05-16 16:32:20 +0000 UTCInterested in your opinions of the movie Agora, and its two cents on masculinity
Eric Adams (German)
2024-05-16 16:12:37 +0000 UTCAbsolutely loved this episode! We do need a movie from the Come and See type perspective of the Slavic village.
Eric Adams (German)
2024-05-16 16:11:59 +0000 UTCdon't come to Orkney. or if you do, stick to Mainland, please. don't bother us out here on the isles, cheers xxx
pip williams
2024-05-16 16:00:43 +0000 UTCSpeaking as a tablet-weaving head, I punched the air when you even mentioned it, so I agree: "Whoaaa!"
Rebeccaej
2024-05-16 15:36:20 +0000 UTCWould really love to hear the other Eggers movies discussed on here
Eric Brennan
2024-05-16 15:15:53 +0000 UTChttps://ictnews.org/opinion/an-indigenous-perspective-on-disclosure-trans-lives-on-screen
vercingix
2024-05-16 13:41:29 +0000 UTChttps://www.sdpb.org/blogs/arts-and-culture/the-winkte-and-the-hundred-in-hand/
vercingix
2024-05-16 13:41:19 +0000 UTCRE Trans magic- This needs loads more research than I can do while at work, but there is apparently a tradition of trans/nonbinary medicine among at least the Cheyenne and Lakota. One was a minor character in "Little Big Man" starring Dustin Hoffman (played for comic relief, ofc). If this is of interest, I will link a couple of random articles I found with a Google search to prime the research pump. Hope you find a rabbit hole worth exploring!
vercingix
2024-05-16 13:41:09 +0000 UTCSkol on, go vike
Charlie Lightning
2024-05-16 13:36:36 +0000 UTCY’all need to see Green Knight!!! On the note of gender roles, honor, and magic, that movie confronts those concepts in such a compelling way
Gwen Smith
2024-05-16 13:20:39 +0000 UTCY'all gotta see Monkey Man!
Slazenger Kincaid
2024-05-16 13:19:23 +0000 UTCThis talk about initiation reminds me. I'm a wizard (tarot, Qabalah, semi- secret lodge, all that) and I'm fully convinced that transitioning is a magical act. My trans friends have levels of awareness that I just don't see in cis people outside of dedicated spiritual seekers. Sorry if that comes off weird
Jake Smith
2024-05-16 13:16:16 +0000 UTCLOL it's me, the excited-about-weaving person. Not just tablet weaving, but bottom weighted spindles and warp weighted looms too! Get hype! Insert lecture here about how big a part of daily life cloth production was in pre-industrial times. I'm still not sure if I like the movie though - the violence was memorably upsetting and the story gives you no katharsis. Which maybe makes it better? But I'm not sure it lands.
Riina
2024-05-16 12:48:25 +0000 UTCAs someone who did see it in cinema, yeah, it was fucking amazing on full screen
Peter Larkin
2024-05-16 12:28:57 +0000 UTCno, the first island where november says its in sweden.
SunRaTheThird
2024-05-16 12:11:43 +0000 UTCI think the Harald who kicked Fjölnir out of Norway is Harald Fairhair, the first King of Norway. By the time Harald Hardrada was kicking about, the Norse world was pretty Christianised
Buckeroo
2024-05-16 11:48:25 +0000 UTCthe island is not sweden, im prety sure its supposed to be orkney or the fareo islands. which fits wit the later part since sweds dident go to iceland that much.
SunRaTheThird
2024-05-16 10:48:33 +0000 UTCI watched this once, in theaters, and from pretty much the second they put a bunch of little kids into a hut and burned it, at no point was I on the protagonist's side in any way. I love roaring rampage of revenge movies, and I thought it was pretty clear this was not one. That the message of this was Puppyboy was a psychotic moron doing futile shit for no reason. Pointless cycle of violence. TO BE FAIR I didn't read it as him literally going to Valhalla; I interpreted that as his brain going on the fritz. It was in his eyes because it wasn't literally happening, and it wasn't worth it. Dude left a wife and life to die in a hole
Andrew Dunn
2024-05-16 09:55:52 +0000 UTCYesssss excited to hear your thoughts on this one
D B
2024-05-16 09:27:49 +0000 UTCDon Delillo mentioned
Mallory Crumbliss
2024-05-16 09:20:19 +0000 UTCOh hell yeah. Nicole Kidman fucking rocks in this
Adam Richert
2024-05-16 08:52:24 +0000 UTCYaaaas, Daddy Skarsgard
The Curious Case of Caley V
2024-05-16 08:50:25 +0000 UTC
