A new clip from Robert Eggers’ The Northman boasts his signature historically-grounded directing style with an infusion of sweeping camera moves suitable for the war epic that it is.
The Viking prince, played by Alexander Skarsgård, leads a raid of berserkers onto a fortified fortress. In one, impressively continuous 55-second segment, Skarsgård and his army fling off their animal pelts and scale the wooden walls.
For being such a relatively brief clip, there’s a surprising amount of action baked into every second. It starts with Skarsgård catching in mid-air a spear thrown in his direction, throwing it back toward his enemy, and striking him from hundreds of yards away. He then tosses off the fur coat, screaming “to Valholl!” From there, the warriors follow suit and they all run toward the fortress, dodging spears along the way. The camera follows Skarsgård as he uses a hatchet to climb the wooden poles and over the top of the wall, where the clip finally ends.
The story of the film follows Skarsgård on a bloody path of revenge to avenge his father’s murder, in a tale partly inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
In terms of cinematic inspirations, co-star Ethan Hawke, who plays Skarsgård’s slain father, likened the film to Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now.
The film also stars Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Björk, and Willem Dafoe.
The Northman hits theaters April 22.