(2009) dir. Nicolas Winding Refn; 93min.
FRIDAY, June 1st at 7 & 9:30pm
SATURDAY, June 2nd at 7 & 9:30pm
SUNDAY, June 3rd at 3pm
This is a brutal, mesmerising film from Dane Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Bronson), dominated by Mads Mikkelsen as a mute fighter, whose journey from twelfth-century Scotland to a strange New World is an odyssey of self-realisation. There are shades here of Terrence Malick’s elemental feel for landscape, the doomed colonial enterprise of Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God and Vincent Ward’s visionary The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, yet Refn makes this hypnotic, dreamlike film entirely his own. The pace slows like a fighter’s heart in the second half, demanding an act of faith that some may find hard after the early intensity. But the breathtaking digital photography and an atmospheric electronic score sustain the mood, and for those who see this savage journey through to the end, there are riches aplenty. ~Nigel Floyd
