I am doing my best to keep my Christmas spirit up. Watched a couple of Christmas videos yesterday, including A Christmas Carol (Alistair Sim) because I needed it. This big translating project I’m doing (for which I thank God, by the way) is, shall we say, about the farthest thing from Christmasy you can imagine. And I’ll say no more about that.
Above is something that feels like a Christmas gift to me. A trailer for an upcoming film called “The Northman” that looks like it might possibly not stink.
It looks like they made some effort to be authentic with costumes and props (there’s a horned helmet there, but it looks ceremonial, which is correct). It’s supposed to be a story about a prince named Amleth, who wants revenge for his father’s death. That suggests inspiration from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (see my novel Blood and Judgment. I wonder if I can sue them for plagiarism. Probably not).
I’m confused about setting. News reports talk about Iceland, but there are no forests in Iceland, and it’s never had a king. But I expect the story moves around some.
Looks like an R rating, and this article suggests elements of witchcraft, so be warned.
But I expect I’ll go to see it.
I dunno… looks likely to have material you can’t un-see. But as for forests, didn’t Iceland have some trees when the Norwegians arrived? My impression was that Iceland was deforested. Not sure where I read that — maybe in a book by Gwyn Jones, The Norse Atlantic Saga and/or some magazine.
There were woods in Iceland, but they were scattered on the hillsides, and not very extensive. The Norse settlers quickly eradicated them through using them for firewood.