Went to see #TheNorthman recently, and it has taken me a while to decide what I think of it. I think it was fantastic aesthetically. Its costume design, set building, and the languages were all amazing. But I left the cinema a little unsure of it as a whole. 1/6
A lot of the takes I've seen from Viking Age specialists have been kind of downbeat. I had some issues with the depiction of slavery and the film definitely took licence with the portrayal of religion and magic. However, the filmmakers are entitled to do this. 2/6
The plot for me was the downside. Efforts were made to show other aspects of Scandinavian activity, but the film was primarily focused on violence and revenge. While there's plenty of this in Icelandic sagas, I felt that the characters were violent by default. 3/6
Was violence a part of life in the Viking Age? Certainly. But people in the Viking Age were still rational people with their own objectives. #TheNorthman reduces its male characters to howling, bloodthirsty monsters, depicting a society in which violence was an end in itself. 4/6
Despite this, I'm glad that filmmakers are continuing to engage with the Viking Age. Some opinions on twitter suggest some academics would rather there be no Viking Age films, but the popularity of the Viking Age in pop culture drives interest in our research. 5/6
There's a lot to like about #TheNorthman but it would be nice to see a film about the Viking Age in which people behaved more logically. The film depicts medieval society as mindlessly violent, but texts show that medieval people were capable of much more than this. 6/6
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