Scandinavia, the time of the Crusades. A silent Viking known as One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) is held captive and forced to fight to the death for the amusement of gold-laden Roman spectators. But one day, the undefeated warrior escapes — killing his captors and sparing only a boy.

Traveling through the cold and lifeless landscapes, the Viking and the boy who follows him encounter a group of Crusaders headed to Jerusalem. The travelers join the detachment, but during the sea voyage, the ship is engulfed in fog — which only clears when they find themselves on the shores of an unknown continent.

⚠️ WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

“When I die, you’ll return to hell.”

Valhalla Rising is a turning point in the career of director Nicolas Winding Refn (the Pusher trilogy, Bronson, Drive) — after this film, all of his subsequent works would be marked by a slow narrative rhythm (Refn would reach the peak of this rhythm exactly 10 years later in the mini-series Too Old to Die Young). Refn borrowed this rhythm from his favorite Tarkovsky films, but Valhalla also contains a more obvious reference to Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch — where the main character travels through a mysterious land inhabited by Native American tribes, and his journey, as expected, ends in death.

And for those more or less familiar with Scandinavian mythology, it also becomes clear who the director sees in his protagonist — Odin, the chief god in Germanic-Scandinavian mythology. According to the texts, Odin was one-eyed and was revered as an invincible warrior and a great seer — that is, he possessed the same qualities as Mikkelsen’s character.

— One-Eye: (looks at the sky).
— Viking: “Do you see yourself?”

Valhalla Rising is a meditative road movie, in which forward movement happens without actual motion. This is felt most strongly when the characters try to cross the sea and get stuck in fog for a long time — the boat doesn’t move, there’s no wind, the sail hangs slack… but in the end, they still arrive at distant lands (which we later understand to be North America). The absence of physical movement is partly mirrored in One-Eye’s lack of motivation — he joins the Crusaders for no apparent reason. He doesn’t need the riches of Jerusalem, and he isn’t a Christian. But the film replaces physical movement with spiritual movement.

That’s why the image of Odin — the harsh Viking god — gradually transforms into the image of Jesus, who humbly accepts death for the sake of others. In this case — the innocent boy. One can also see here a portrait of Refn himself — searching for his own identity through creativity. It’s enough to recall the director’s early films to understand: Valhalla was a key turning point in his career and defined his visual and narrative style for the next decade.

Moreover, Valhalla has its own kind of dyslexia (a condition Refn suffered from until age 13): all the characters combined speak only about 120 lines of dialogue — and One-Eye doesn’t say a single word. This is Refn’s first film that speaks to the viewer exclusively through visuals and music — it is the art of wordlessness. The effect of long takes showing nature is amplified by the ambient-style music composed by Peter Kyed and Peter Peter, which deliberately avoids melody.

The divine nature of the protagonist is revealed not only in his resemblance to Odin and his invincibility in battle, but also in his ability to foresee the future — this is shown through visions tinted in a stark red. One-Eye follows the path shown to him by this supernatural ability.

In one of these visions, a man covered in red paint (later revealed to be the missing Crusader) points toward a cross — as if foretelling One-Eye’s fate. In doing so, the Crusader takes on the role of John the Baptist, who revealed the fate of Christ. And if we take the film’s original title, it translates as The Ascent to Valhalla — Odin is the master of Valhalla, so his journey is, in essence, a return home.

Thus, there is movement and transformation of characters in the film (ascent is a form of movement), but not in the traditional sense known in literature and cinema. The main character changes the least, since he is presented to the viewer as a deity from the very beginning. It is those who follow One-Eye who undergo transformation.

For example, the priest, who confesses before his death that he went to Jerusalem to atone for the deaths of his sons in battle — to atone through blood. But before dying, he finds humility; there is no hatred or anger left in him — and that is his transformation.

Motifs

Refn’s film is written in the language of war — that is one of its central motifs. War is the domain of men, which is why the film is completely devoid of the idea of femininity. For example, the boy recalls not his mother, but his father — telling how he gave him a cross-shaped talisman.

Refn, like a sculptor, cuts away everything he sees as unnecessary. This also explains the protagonist’s silence — which allows the story to avoid a subjective perspective and shift the focus toward the transformation of the other characters.

Another important motif in the film is the cross. In Refn’s use of it, many viewers saw a critique of Christianity (the Crusaders often act foolishly and are quick to kill — even their own), but looking more broadly, one can see the director exploring religion from the perspective of multiple interpretations. For the Crusaders, the cross is not a symbol of forgiveness and redemption — they are driven only by greed and hatred of pagans.

For example, the leader of the Crusaders stabs his old friend in the back — simply for choosing to follow One-Eye, essentially another god. For One-Eye, the cross is a symbol of destiny, a kind of wooden inuksuk — a directional marker used by the Inuit (indigenous peoples of North America, the same “natives” the characters later encounter). He later builds such a marker out of stone, while under the influence of a hallucinogenic drink. For the innocent boy, the cross is nothing more than a trinket, a keepsake from his father.

But why are the Crusaders shown by Refn in such an unflattering light? The answer is on the surface: in fact, they are the same pagans they were exterminating. The Crusaders don’t even bury the bodies of the people they kill — they burn them. So it’s no surprise that their pagan nature reveals itself in how they perceive divine revelation. To achieve it, the Crusaders drink a hallucinogenic brew — a kind of mushroom-based decoction used by Vikings before battle to reach a delirious state.

The drink releases the essence of each of them: the priest demonstrates his faith by praying to his sword (and it’s true — he brings his faith to others through violence), One-Eye builds that very same stone inuksuk (either as a warning sign, or to mark a sacred place, or possibly as a memorial for the dead), one of the Crusaders assaults his companion (the senselessness of this act from the standpoint of reproduction sort of emphasizes the senselessness of any physical violence), and someone else simply immerses himself in water, surrendering to the elements and at the same time cleansing his sins.

Valhalla Rising ends on a mountain, where the surviving characters arrive with their last remaining strength. Their group is no accident: a father who has lost two sons and seeks to atone for their deaths; a man who, after the rape, has lost his son’s honor — and whose final worthy act will be to follow that son and the father who abandoned them all; the innocent boy, as a witness to the downfall of the others and the “voice” of One-Eye; and, of course, One-Eye himself.

There, on the mountain, each of the characters experiences a transformation — which means they complete their journey. And only one of them is destined to build a boat and sail away from this cursed land — so that he may carry the knowledge he gained to others.