By Keri O’Shea
When we think about the portrayal of the eponymous Vikings on screen, we tend to associate them with battle epics – simply put, hear ‘Viking’ and assume that blood, guts, rape and pillage can’t be far behind. Well, to a certain degree, the shoe fits; the first Naval superpower didn’t always make friends where it landed, and the Vikingr were responsible for a good deal of violence during the (debated) three hundred or so most active years of the Viking Age. However, this is only a part of their story, and of the peoples with whom they variously traded, settled, intermarried and fought over the centuries. And, just as there is more to the Vikings, so we now also see something of a move towards different perspectives on them and their contemporaries in cinema; the film which leaps to mind here is, of course, Nicholas Winding Refn’s slow-burn mood piece Valhalla Rising, a great film often maligned for being a terrible battle epic, when it never ever had the slightest pretension to being one. Hmm. Perhaps it’s going to take the viewing public a little while longer to get into the idea of the low-key Viking movie…but they should, as this is a terrific and as-yet mostly untapped vein of ferocious history and cultural upheaval. Which brings me to director Chris Crow’s most recent movie, The Darkest Day.
As recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the year of 793 was a particularly bad time for the people of Britain; illness and famine had laid the populace low enough, and many were beginning to believe that they were living in the end of days – when, as they landed on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, it seemed that God had added a heathen horde to the problems facing his believers. The monastery of Lindisfarne was no match for the insurgent Danes; the monks had embraced simplicity, chastity and poverty, and were, in effect, unsuited in every way to repelling the invaders, even had they wished. This real historical starting-point is where writer/director Crow begins his tale. Here, the Vikings have come in search of the Holy Gospel of Lindisfarne; not because they want to convert – they hold no truck with the Whitechrist – but because they know of the book’s reputation for great power and their leader, Hadrada, seeks this power for himself and his son. Whosoever gains access to the book, he believes, will have absolute power over all Britain.
However, at first unknown to Hadrada and his men, the book has already been taken out of the monastery by two keepers whose aim is to smuggle it to the safety of Iona. Young monk Hereward is charged with completing this task, and (albeit with a Saxon protectorate) thus begins a deadly game of pursuit into the brutal heart of ancient Northumbria, where the old gods have not been extinguished and the grasp of Christianity has not overcome the urge to fight, and kill. (Well, has it ever?)
In its arduous journey of a minuscule cast through unforgiving terrain, it’s fair to say that The Darkest Day does bear some resemblance to a number of other films; it certainly reflects something of the leaden gloom of Valhalla Rising, whilst other elements in the storytelling, like the quasi-magical significance of the Gospel and the journey for it reminded me a little of Black Death and its own protagonists’ journey to the village which has power over the Plague – but, as both of these are films I love, I certainly have no problem with that. Where The Darkest Day differs from these is in the particular way it fuses story, folk tale, and a real British historical perspective which is all but invisible in film.
Whilst I started this review by talking about the Vikings, you have to remember that the Vikings didn’t exist in a vacuum, and when they started raiding England, they were frequently knocking heads with a population which, soon after settling had begun referring to themselves as the English – the Anglo-Saxons. Where are the Saxons in cinema? Hardly to be seen, which perhaps reflects that common misconception of a ‘Dark Age’ in Britain which unfairly places the Saxons in the ‘mumblemumble’ category of history between Roman and Viking. Therefore, it’s an absolute pleasure to find a film which reflects all inhabitants of the British Isles at this point in time, and even more of a pleasure to find a character like Aethulwulf (Mark Lewis Jones), an affirmedly Anglo-Saxon badass, protector of Hereward, and more than happy to cleave a few Dane skulls, given half the chance. We also have Picts who keep to their old ways (step forward, ahem, PILF Eara, played by Elen Rhys), crazed Christian sects, and godless assassins. It’s dangerous in them hills (the film was actually shot entirely on location in South Wales) and, really speaking, it’s unfair to call this film just a Viking movie, even though in this day and age it’s a tag which sells. The Vikings here are really flawed antagonists in an all-encompassing tale of a time in flux; one more thing that I liked was that these ain’t supermen and this ain’t Pathfinder. All the people represented here are believable because they make mistakes, or they’re selfish, or cowardly, or scared.
As the plot depends on an on-foot pursuit, with one set of people desperately trying to avoid being seen by the other, the story arc here is often surprisingly gentle, with a sense of real-time movement through the land. We also have a very small cast, with no huge armies or heavily-populated areas. However, when it gets nasty, this is a bloody, tense tale, which actually leads to the one scene I think should have hit the cutting-room floor, namely the rape scene, a shock which disrupted the moody atmosphere of the film for a moment. I personally preferred to immerse myself in those cold, bleak landscapes, a series of strong performances and in the sense of a tale very slowly coming together – and the conclusion, when it comes, is an absolutely brilliant moment.
If you were to come to this film expecting any fulfilment of the cover art – yes, that cover art replete with smug history student-baiting horned helmets, or people who aren’t in the film at all – then, trust me, you will be disappointed in The Darkest Day. Someone’s had one of those brainstorms which winds up utterly misrepresenting the film. Leave it alone, if it’s mass-scale blood and iron you’re after. This is a film about people, not armies, and mindsets, not massacres. If, however, you have room in your heart for a brooding, evocative historical drama set in some of early Medieval Britain’s most troubled times, then you would be hard-pressed to find a better one than this. I – perhaps predictably – loved this film.
‘The Darkest Day’ Teaser Trailer. from Chris Crow on Vimeo.
The Darkest Day (as Viking: The Darkest Day) is available to buy now.