★★★★Welcome to a story of revenge, war, blood and religion in the dark North of Europe, in the high Middle Ages, with a king killed by his brother who captures his wife and a boy who swears revenge and recover the kingdom (ok, yes, there is something Hamletian here but Hamlet is based on a Danish legend). It is the third feature film by Robert Eggers, that of that gem of horror that is “The Witch” and of a black and white film, also horror, called “The Lighthouse”, which did not have a premiere here. Eggers is an absolute stylist: here he invents forms of action cinema and seeks -as in his previous films- an elemental, primitive tale, the root of a traditional tale. He knows those tales have had a wild run, and it’s a wild movie in more ways than one. There is action, there is blood, there are very primitive rites. At that point, even if everything is stylized and has a very elaborate staging, the film is almost a documentary, an approach not only to the roots of the myth but to how it could have been recorded, and with what elements, if the cinema had existed. With those conventions accepted, it’s unrestrained, sometimes excessive, entertainment that breaks today’s ordinary Hollywood.
