Epic meets horror and history...adventure

Rating: 6/10 (17 September 2006)

There are not many movies about the Vikings, which appears to be pretty hard to explain keeping in mind that this part of history looks particularly attractive for cinema. Nevertheless, there have been some directors who attempted to make a movie about the giant Norsemen. Except for Richard Fleischer, who made a primarily adventure film with top cast of the time in 1958, John McTiernan is a man who had a wonderful idea in 1999: to make not only an epic, a spectacle with historical facts, but combine most popular aspects of today's cinema in a movie the action of which is set more than 1000 years ago. Yet, did the idea work in practice?
The combination of horror, epic, history and adventure at first seems to work in the 13TH WARRIOR. As an epic fan, I watched it with historical imagination, as a thriller fan, I saw it full of curiosity of the action, particularly the sequence with mysterious, cannibalistic Creatures of the Mist and their leader Wendol (the content partly based on BEOWULF). The moody atmosphere reaches its peak before the cruel attacks on villages. The moments, though brutal, exceptionally involved me. The witch who comes and selects the twelve Viking warriors to fight the enemy...the moment she says that the thirteenth warrior cannot be a Norseman is unforgettable. Except for horror fans, there is also much for adventure lovers. The entire content is a pure adventure. Since what may be equally interesting and mysterious than the 10th century Scandinavia? What may be equally involving than the brave bloody combats of the strong warriors of the North? However, though the director seems to manage the combination of horror with epic and adventure with history, there is so much of it that a conclusion sounds like this: "You simply don't know what the film is going at..."
The cast give pretty good performances. In my opinion, however, it is not Antonio Banderas who is at the top. He does no outstanding job in the portrayal of his character, though an interesting one of Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, the 13th warrior. Many moments are unnatural, particularly the first half when Banderas is exposed to live and fight among the unclean, brute, strong, giant blond masters of the seas. Yet, there are better performances in THE 13TH WARRIOR. The actors who shine in their roles are Vladimit Kulich, who is absolutely brilliant as an untamed, courageous Viking leader Buliwyf and Omar Sharif as a wise man from the Far East, Melchisedek (unfortunately given rather too little time on screen). It's a pity that the director did not develop the character of Olga (Maria Donnevie). A plot of a love affair would be something that many viewers could find absorbing in such a film). But it is another omission that the film has. But let us now concentrate on some advantages that the movie can boast.
The cinematography and scenery are fine. Although THE 13TH WARRIOR was not filmed in Scandinavia as the aforementioned VIKINGS (Fleischer made his film in Geiranger Fjord in Norway), McTiernan's shooting locations of Canada and Canadian natural beauties do leave an unfading trace in many viewers. And they really look authentic. The battle scenes, in spite of being too long, sometimes, are very realistic and imitate Ridley Scott's films (KINGDOM OF HEAVEN). I also liked the mysterious grandeur that was exposed in the scene of a royal funeral. These aspects, however, serve primarily the purpose of an epic and the illogic of it all is that THE 13TH WARRIOR is not an epic film - it only seems to be in a way. Therefore, it's pretty hard to evaluate what the film really is. It's a sort of combination, which makes it a really confusing movie for many people.
Finally, I would like to concentrate on one positive aspect of the film that many users did not entail in their comments...a different (and accurate) way of seeing Arabs. Their living conditions, their elegance, their riches and exceptional hygiene were far higher than the ones found in the Europe of that time. The main character, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan (Antonio Banderas) is shocked by the lack of hygiene that the Vikings had. In this way, historically speaking, we, Europeans, learned a lot from our brothers, Muslims. This aspect is wonderfully developed in the film, not only in the scene about "drawing sounds" (writing) at which Buliwyf is amazed but also at the moment Ahmed prays to Allah at the end.
I cannot say that I disliked THE 13TH WARRIOR. This is a sort of film that should not be treated as a serious history and categorized within one genre. The movie rather combines many aspects of movie genres: thrilling atmosphere of adventure, facts of history, grandeur of spectacle, violence of battles, courage of warriors, mystery of horrors, and wisdom of reflections. Yet, this combination occurs to be a partial failure. 6/10!