VALHALLA RISING

A man with no name, no voice, with only one eye, kept like an animal: One-Eye is put forward as a fighter by a chieftain and wins every match. When he frees himself, a boy follows him, and the two join a group of Christians setting out on a crusade to the Holy Land. The ship is caught in fog, the coast where they run aground is not the one they expected, and the journey becomes a descent – into an unknown world and into the visions that haunt One-Eye. Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Valhalla Rising” (Denmark 2009), with Mads Mikkelsen in a role without a single word, is set in the twelfth century and was shot in Scotland.

Refn has structured the film into chapters and reduced dialogue to a minimum; its tone is closer to a trip than a historical drama. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2009. “Valhalla Rising” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2010.