We’ve raved somewhat endlessly about Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson,” the “Pusher” trilogy) and his viking film “Valhalla Rising” which we reviewed quite favorably at last year’s TIFF, calling it a cross between Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky and Terrence Malick making a horror film together.
Yes, he’s on his way though to be a world-renowned auteur, though RIP his two recent projects with Harrison Ford and Keanu Reeves, sadly.
We also posted the brutally badass ‘Valhalla’ teaser trailer almost a year ago now. However, the trailer did not exactly exemplify the film’s meditative, eerie and atmosphere mood which you can now see in a new short clip.
The newly posted two minute clip of ‘Valhalla’ features no dialogue (much of the film goes for large stretches without it) but does prominently feature a piece of ominous the score by Peter Peter and Peter Kyed (which at times is wonderfully volcanic and tribal in the picture). The visuals alternate between a mesmerizing glowing orange color palette and the bleak grays seen in the trailer, culminating in some fairly graphics cranial blows at the end. Needless to say, the clip is as intense as you would expect any film concerning itself with a one-eyed mute viking (Mads Mikkelsen) forced against his will to fight for a Scottish clan. This particular writer has not seen the film yet but can only imagine the outstanding quality from this clip and our review. Expect the film to be released in theaters and on demand sometime this year by IFC, and you can watch the clip below.
So next for Refn is his adaptation of James Sallis’ “Drive” starring Ryan Gosling about a L.A. stunt driver which sounds like a neo-noir thriller. But the super prolific filmmaker also has another picture already completed called, “Vinnie & Mario” starring David Proval (“The Sopranos”) and John Capodice, right? It fooled the hopeful (admittedly, we too were initially psyched), but it simply just turned out to be a commercial campaign for a Danish travel company called Spies. Ah well, it’s not like Refn doesn’t crank out pictures as it is.
