This article was originally a thread on social media, which is why it is formatted with lots of images and short responses.
The text is about the image below that paragraph.
Some of Eggers his historical films are amazing (The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015) & Nosferatu (2024) that I both reviewed) but he sure does like depicting the past as dark and colourless, which sometimes makes sense but not always.
Let’s see what he did to the Vikings.
And yes, there will be spoilers and yes I’m going to be the annoying historian complaining about the tiniest details, just so you know, you’ve been warned.
That damn blue/grey filter. I know, for a fact, that some of the clothes in this scene had nice colours, some even bright colours, but the filter completely drowns that out, turning everything depressing and sad and dark again.
Yes I know, it’s winter, it may even be evening, but still, it’s all the time.
Winter doesn’t magically make colours vanish, Vikings loved colours, just like most humans ever, their clothes were often vibrant.
The great hall scene is FANTASTIC. Having fire in stead of dumb torches, a hearth in the centre and it’s DARK.
Of course it’s well lit for the film, but you don’t notice it like in most films, it looks natural & realistic. Which in the film business is a brave choice.
OH, she is doing tablet weaving! Super authentic. I’d put my hair away though, one distraction and you’ve woven it into your fabric and, well, that would be a mess. Don’t ask me how I know. No I was not drunk on mead and tablet weaving at the same time, that’s just a rumour!
Although I’m the least spiritual human who ever lived, I did rather like these mysterious rituals with the big carved stones. Less keen on all the naked men in just underpants.
There was a lot of Zooooink sword-drawing sound, but not as disturbing and over the top as in most films.
Remember, in reality drawing a sword made little noise, it wasn’t supposed to, you don’t always want everyone to know you’re getting ready to stab someone in the face.
The sound also means your precious sword blade is scraping against something hard as you pull it out, possibly metal on the sheath, which is not good.
Of course the sound is delicious and difficult to resist, so I get it, but still.
BUT this film is sort of fantasy, some of the scenes are clearly taking place in someone’s imagination, which is a great excuse for the film maker to get away with it all 😉
Oh and there’s a lot of gruesome bloody violence in the film.
Which is authentic and didn’t bother me one bit;
Oh no, the angry hippies have arrived;
A great weird ceremony, perfectly fine use of a horned headdress, yes Vikings didn’t have horned helmets but they may have had hats/helmets like these for special events, we have depictions of stuff that sort of fits this, so it’s fine by me;
Yeah, but no. Even if you’re super cool and can climb palisades with just one axe like this, there’s no way they’d let you get up there.
This is silly:
But I did like it, it was impressive and it reminded me of this scene from ‘The Vikings’ (1958), where Kirk Douglas does it (back when they still had colours);
Well, someone has had a Hollywood workout. I reckon vikings would have been less ab-by, and more bulky. Also why is everyone wearing white? And why is our “hero” topless? Fighting without a shirt is silly;
STUNT CHICKENS. I laughed. Seriously, come on, why? We need more drama while this village is slaughtered, FETCH THE CHICKENS. I just imagined the set-extra or maybe even an animal wrangler getting paid to throw a random chicken into the shot;
Ok, I’m sorry but this village deserves everything they got, what a filthy mess. I know it rains a lot but come on.
Add a few drains and it’s already much less of an issue. Wooden paving perhaps?
We know from archaeological evidence that wooden sidewalks and even streets were a thing!
I’ve also seen neater thatched roofs, so thin, put some effort into your work thatcher;
Normal people: oh no they are killing everyone and enslaving everybody else, this is shocking.
Me: Oh no, this is awful and sad, also I can thatch that roof better, oh a dog, they better not hurt that dog!
I liked this. Yes more mud and topless men. But that leader on a horse is a woman, no idea who or why, but she’s there, she’s involved and she’s not just one of 91825 Valkyries or shield-maidens like we see run around in every History Channel’s ‘The Vikings’ episode;
Not sure why they had a house with stick walls that weren’t covered.
If you don’t daub the wattle, you’re just asking for trouble, like here where a Naughty thief can stick his hand through!
Also it’s windy and cold this way.
All you need to fix it is some mud, or dung & straw!
Silly.
‘m not keen on the slaves all wearing these very light white/gray clothes. Surely they’d just wear hand-me-downs with all sorts of colours, just faded;
And this is why swords shouldn’t make much sound when drawn. If the sword had made the film sound here in reality, someone would have heard him;
Yeah I really don’t like these slave outfits.
White linen, like underwear, cheap, easy to clean, but it still would be odd for all the slaves wearing the same clothes, let alone the same colour clothes.
And for a slave who toils all day, why do they all look so clean?
Gorgeous shot, very impressive, love this.
See, there are colours!
GREAT costumes by the way, amazing detail in everything, truly superb. And no black leather motorcycle gang members anywhere!
And it looks even better when I fix it in photoshop, removing the blue filter improved the scene even more, the contrast is so big and the problem so common, I decided to make it into a meme;
Interesting to see the viking funeral, pretty much completely based on Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s description of one somewhere by the Volga.
For someone obsessed with making it all authentic, it’s interesting that they left out the mass rape scene;
As valuable as Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s account is, it’s only one and its related to the ‘Rus Vikings, a group of people originally Norse but who had lived in East Europe and assimilated and merged with the tribes there, so how Norse they and their habits still were is up for debate.
But it is fascinating to see it reenacted for the film and it’s rather well done;
Love this. I mean it’s a bit silly, but who cares, she is not real, it’s a Valkyrja doing god stuff. The teeth are fun, we know some Vikings carved their teeth, not sure they painted those carvings though, not sure why a Valkyrja would, but it looks cool and again, when it comes to something supernatural, you can’t really go very wrong;
FINALLY someone takes a bath.
What a lovely scene, paused it, just for hygiene history science reasons of course;
Anyway the rest of the film is just boring old fighting by men who should be wearing more clothes. Watching sweaty dirty muscular men in just leather underpants scream at each other and do a bit of fighting just doesn’t interest me that much.
Besides, the story is predictable, even if you had never read Hamlet, you sort of know what’s going to happen.
The weakest part of the film for me was that I pretty quickly lost interest and didn’t feel I cared for any of the people in it. That’s not a good thing.
So, in short, the film is a mixed bag.
Historical accuracy wise it’s much better than the trailer suggested, it was generally a joy to watch and especially fun to recognise replicas of things I’ve seen in museums, documentaries, etc. A LOT of effort was put into making it right.
Imagine if History Channel’s ‘The Vikings’ had been given this amount of attention, it could have been good.
With this film we know there were consultants, researchers prop makers & set designers involved who knew what they were doing.
But we also know the director sometimes ignored advice from those they should be listening to…
I should know, I’ve been both a director and a historical consultant and I never ever listen to anyone, not even myself.
And directors have that right, they can tell any story any way they want, they always should have the freedom to take any liberty with the truth, even history, to tell the story the way they want it to be told.
Artists should not be limited in how they express themselves.
But when you tell a history story or a story that’s set in a real past, even when it involves made up people and events, you still have the opportunity to represent that past accurately and if you choose not to or make mistakes, us historians and history addicts can and will complain about it.
So, a LOT of things were done really well, especially compared to most viking films/shows.
But its biggest sin was that the story just didn’t do it for me, which makes the 2 hours 2 very long hours.
And I’m totally a fan of bloody revenge, don’t ask.
My IMDB rating: 7/10.
Oh PS, one last thing; Hollywood, film makers, TV drama makers, everybody who films anything medieval related ever: CAN YOU STOP USING THE BLUE FILTER ALL THE TIME PLEASE?!
The past had colour!
If you enjoyed reading my review, check out this list of other reviews, there’s a couple of other Eggers films there;
Fake History Hunter 