As I was watching it, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity in names between Prince Amleth, the hero of The Northman, and a certain other famous prince in world literature, namely Hamlet. As the story began to unfold in the new film from director Robert Eggers, who brought us the deeply researched and meticulously crafted films The Witch and The Lighthouse, I saw other similarities. There is a king who is betrayed and slain by his own brother. The young prince, his mother taken as a spoil of victory by the new king, vows revenge on his treacherous uncle.
I thought that Eggers and his cowriter, the Icelandic poet, novelist, and lyricist who goes by Sjón, might have taken inspiration from the Bard for their tale of Nordic kings and Viking berserkers. Turns out – as I’m sure more than a few of you already knew – that I had it backwards. It was Shakespeare who took inspiration from young Amleth for his own Prince of Denmark. As I should have suspected after seeing his first two films, Eggers took inspiration for his movie from and adapted the 13th century version of the Nordic legend of Amleth as memorialized by Saxo Grammaticus, in his Gesta Danorum.
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It would be reductive of me to call Yorgos Lanthimos the new Stanley Kubrick. The Greek director responsible for the provocative films Dogtooth, Alps, and my initiation into his twisted imagination, The Lobster, is nothing if not a unique talent. Still, there are certain undeniable Kubrickian flourishes in his new film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Chief among them are a penchant for inserting nihilistic black comedy in otherwise bleak subject matter, and his facility with patient, beautiful camera movement and framing. Sacred Deer is one of the most challenging, most disturbing films I’ve seen this year.
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If you’re already familiar with Garth Davis, it’s probably from his work on television commercials. Subtlety isn’t high on the list of attributes for that particular discipline, but it is something Davis excels at with his feature-film debut, Lion. It’s one of the most emotionally resonant movies of 2016, yet it is completely devoid of manipulation. The physical, emotional, and spiritual journey of Lion’s protagonist is transcendent. Davis and screenwriter Luke Davies take care to never succumb to heavy-handed melodrama. They tell the story simply, and let the character’s actions speak for themselves. A film can’t stand on writing and direction alone, though, so Davis and Davies brought in a cinematographer (Greig Fraser) who shot the film beautifully, and cast actors who brought the story to life with powerful, but understated performances. Lion is a quiet, unassuming movie and it’s that much more impactful for it.
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