The Mind Fuck that is Valhalla Rising...

There are a thousand and one important things that I should be doing right now, but I have something even more important to tell you.

I watched Valhalla Rising (2009) last night, with a friend and a Hot & Spicy Pineapple French Toast Sandwich. Yeah, that's right. Desperation and hunger sparks things in the right brain, I learned. And it was absolutely delicious! But I digress...

Valhalla Rising- it confused us, carried us far beyond our comfort zones, and took our minds on a twisted journey we were not at all prepared for. That was the thing. I normally read about whatever I am about to try, whether it is a movie or a book, and prepare myself for the sensory onslaught.

But the randomness of yesterday evening (which included a trip Downtown to a redneck pub, that- I learned later today- was visited by Newt Gingrich last year during his run up to a failed presidential campaign) left me no time to read reviews, and before I knew it, there we were, two oblivious children with their lukewarm pineapple sandwiches watching one of the most mind-frying pieces of visual art I have seen in a very long time.

And I do not wish to spoil the fun for you. I want you to feel just like I did- toenail-curling, teeth-clenching confusion. I will only tell you that Valhalla Rising is not going to be what you expect it to be.

Set in around 1000 AD, it is supposedly the story of a warrior, who escapes his captors and partakes on a mysterious journey in search of the Holy Land across the oceans that leads him to Hell. But I warn you, this is not what it sounds like.

Valhalla Rising is not an action or horror movie. It is not the story of a war hero. It just does not fit under any conventional label. It is bloody, gory and bleak with a bitter taste of history. It is not complex- quite on the contrary, it is a very simple, straight plot. No build ups, no climaxes or anticlimaxes as you would expect. No meaning. It just is. My friend despised it. "I wasted one and a half hours of my life," he said. So I reckon this is not for everyone.

And the music! According to the the director, Nicolas Refn, this is what "non-music" or "silence" would sound like. Eerie, dark and unsettling, yet strangely beautiful. It haunts the landscapes, the vast, breathtaking plains of Scotland, where this film was shot.

Everything that throws its audience off-balance in this movie is based on the element of surprise. There is no better mind-fuck than the confusion you create yourself, desperately trying to make sense of a world that has no meaning.

In the director's own words:

"It's almost like: How do you create a movie like a drug? If you take LSD, the way you do that is you consume it and then you wait for it to take over. Ant the waiting period is frustrating because you don't know when or how it's going to hit you. Valhalla is conceived like that." read more...

Enjoy the trip, folks!!