Susan Granger’s review of “Vikings: Journey to New Worlds” (IMAX)
Everyone has heard of the Vikings – those fearless seafarers whose intrepid explorations changed the course of history. In this new large-screen documentary, live-action dramatic reenactments illustrate how Vikings were not only barbaric warriors but also farmers, poets, and skilled craftsmen. Indeed, it was their shipbuilding skills that enabled them to venture to never-before-seen lands. By the way, real Vikings didn’t wear those helmets with pointy horns. That stereotypical headgear was, perhaps, invented by costume designers for Wagnerian operas. The film opens with what is believed to have been the first, ruthless Viking raid. It was at Lindisfarne, a Christian monastery on the northeast coast of England, in 793 A.D.. Early one morning, a lone monk is standing on the beach when, slowly and silently, out of the fog comes the dragon-shaped prowhead of a Viking longship. Though this scene plays without any bloodshed or graphic violence, the savagery of the subsequent pillaging is made clear. (Don’t expect anything like the atrocities depicted in Kirk Douglas’ 1958 “The Vikings.”) The most notable Viking voyages began in the 10th century, when Eric the Red, a Norwegian mariner, discovered Greenland. Banished from Iceland for three years because his uncontrollable temper caused several deaths, he sailed west and the landfall he discovered (c. 982) was so appealing that he named it Greenland. In the following years, a number of Icelandic Vikings settled there. Eric’s son, Leif, then sailed further westward, discovering Helluland, Markland and Vinland – which seem to correlate with Labrador, Nova Scotia and New England – 500 years before Christopher Columbus – although the 1965 evidence of the so-called Vinland map is now known to have been a post-1920s forgery. Co-writer/director Marc Fafard and photographer Andy Kitzanuk explore some of the most important archeological Viking sites, including the still pristine and tranquil L’Anse aux Meadows, where Leif Erikkson settled in Newfoundland, and the Arni Magnusson Institute in Reykjavik, Iceland, where precious medieval manuscripts, called sagas, that describe the oral traditions of the Vikings are kept. Briefly, too, note is made of Viking incursions into what became Normandy and Russia. “What I most want audiences to take away from this film,” says Fafard, “is that the Viking era is a truly significant part of human history; that the Vikings were a truly great civilization in all respects. The truth is that the Vikings had a profound impact upon history and human progress through their mastery of the art of warfare AND their zeal for discovery, adventure and knowledge. (They) valued poetry and the mastery of the spoken word in much the same way that they valued warfare and the art of weaponry.” Lessons learned include not only geography but the origins of words like Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. All three relate to ancient Norse mythology, a subject into which one wishes the film-makers had delved with more insight. With its icy fjords, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Vikings” is a spectacularly scenic 7. It may, in fact, be the most magnificently photographed history lesson you’ll ever see. Summer school groups and day camps take note.
