Valhalla Rising (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009)

Winding Refn may be best known as the director of the admirably uncompromising Pusher trilogy, which first brought him together with Mads Mikkelsen, an actor of formidable range and subtlety. For them to reunite to present an arthouse Conan the Barbarian is surely taking the piss.
Valhalla Rising, then is basically Lars Von Trier going straight into reworking The 13th Warrior to unwind from Antichrist. It's even divided into chapters with foreboding titles as Antichrist was. Mikkelsen's mute One Eye is a Viking era superhero kept in chains to fight without respite. A flaxen-haired waif attaches himself to the killing machine and then they're launched into a ill-conceived crusade with a band of Christians on a mission to convert heathens.
It is strong on atmosphere, particularly in some startlingly eerie photography and stiflingly disorientating setpieces. But it doesn't at any point really seem interested in injecting more thematic depth to the world it has visually managed to capture to an impressive degree, and hence leaves just disconnected moody images in the mind.

5/10