Guerrilla-style Filmmaking

Nicolas Winding Refn caused a stir with his last venture, "Bronson". Not a biopic in any ordinary sense, Refn’s film about Britain’s longest-serving prisoner was chided for glorifying a criminal but also praised for its daring originality. Now Refn is finishing "Valhalla Rising", a large-scale international co-production with Mads Mikkelsen as Refn’s preferred outsider hero.

At the heart of "Valhalla Rising" is a larger-than-life hero, a misfit by the name of One-Eye. Played by Mads Mikkelsen, One-Eye is a mute warrior of supernatural strength held captive by the chieftain Barde. Aided by an orphan boy, he manages to escape and kill his captor. Pursued by bounty hunters, the two board a Viking vessel bound for unknown shores – a journey into the heart of darkness but also, as it turns out, to a fabled land, where One-Eye discovers his true identity.

“As a child I was in love with three things,” director Nicolas Winding Refn says. “Science fiction, Spaghetti westerns and Samurai sword plays – genres where the lead character is a hero of mythical proportion, a silent warrior who stands alone. One-Eye is such a character.”

Facts

NICOLAS WINDING REFN

Born 1970, Denmark. Writer, producer and director. Lived in New York from age 10 to 17. At age 24, Refn wrote and directed "Pusher" (1996), winning instant critical acclaim. "Bleeder" (1999) premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the FIPRES CI Award at Sarajevo in 2000. John Turturro starred in Refn’s "Fear X" (2003), an English-language, Danish-Canadian co-production that was selected for Sundance. In just one year, Refn wrote, directed, and produced the two follow-ups to his now cult-classic "Pusher: With Blood on My Hands" (2004), and "I am the Angel of Death" (2005). In 2007, Refn was asked to direct an episode of the BBC show Miss Marple. During pre-production of "Valhalla Rising", Refn accepted an offer to write and direct "Bronson". "Valhalla Rising" (release 2009) is Refn’s seventh feature film.

NIMBUS FILM

Founded 1993 by producers Birgitte Hald and Bo Ehrhardt. Celebrated for several Dogme films, including "The Celebration" (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998) and "Mifune" (Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, 1999). Helmed Dagur Kári’s "Dark Horse" (2005), selected for Un Certain Regard in Cannes, Pernille Fischer Christensen’s double Berlin-winner "A Soap" (2006), and Ole Christian Madsen’s boxoffice hit, the WW2 drama "Flame & Citron" (2008). In the pipeline is Thomas VInterberg’s "Submarino" (release 2010).

NOT A VIKING FILM

Even though the story has all the trappings of a grand Viking epic, Refn, from the outset, was intent on telling a modern story of a man’s search for identity.

“I’m not really interested in Vikings as such,” he has pointed out. “Rather, my film is about the Vikings who came to America. I’m fascinated by the American dream that says that everything is possible. If you follow your dream, you’ll reach it, somehow. It will cost you blood, sweat and tears, but it’s worth it.”

Refn’s approach to the ancient saga was to combine poignant imagery with a close-up, intimate realism.

The lengthy production period played its part in lending the film a strong sense of authenticity. The Danish-Scottish team spent two months in the grandiose Glen Affric Mountains in the Scottish highlands. Refn was deliberately looking for desolate, inaccessible locations where he could make use of his special brand of guerrilla-style filmmaking.

“The first two weeks were the most crazy,” Mads Mikkelsen said about the shoot. “I didn’t think we’d survive, honestly. We were freezing all day long. But I think that you can feel that madness in the takes, and that’s pretty cool.”

MORAL TALES

As he often does in his films, Refn shot most of Valhalla Rising in sequence. “This enables me to explore the film with the characters,” he says. And, if necessary, make room for changes and variations that emerge in the process.

“I strongly believe that film is an art form, and art needs to be explored,” he says, pinpointing his driving force as a filmmaker: his passion for plunging deep into the unknown.

Refn’s willingness to go all the way first made waves in 1996 when he and Mikkelsen both had their breakthrough with "Pusher". The film was like a slap in the face, with its graphic violence and grungy depiction of Copenhagen’s underworld, and became pivotal to the 1990s’ new wave in Danish cinema.

The common thread through all Refn’s films is, in fact, violence. On the surface, "Valhalla Rising", with its universe of oppression and vengeance, seems to be no exception. But unlike many action films, there is nothing glamourous or fetishistic about the brutal realism of Refn’s films. They may be violent, but the violence is intrinsic to these moral tales of human depth and vulnerability, tragedy and poetry.