Last weekend, Valhalla opened to a limited release. The film stars the great Mads Mikklesen as a silent predator named “One Eye” who is used as a slave to fight others in 1000 AD. While the violence is strong and intense, it is the silence that is most shocking. Very little dialogue is found, but the sublime direction by Refn offers you all you really need to know. This one is worth looking for, if you want something completely different.  It is also currently available on VOD.  Check out this strange, violent and beautiful movie however you'd like.

iamROGUE recently spoke to Nicholas about the film, and about his thoughts on Hollywood. He is honest, and he is very serious about his work, mind you, not too serious. His next film, Drive will be unlike anything we’ve seen from him before. It stars Ryan Gosling and it will most certainly have the style that Rehn always brings. I look forward to seeing what he can do with a different kind of action flick.

Nicholas is not your typical director. He is skilled and sometimes pretty damn brilliant. When I said hello to him, he started off with talking about a meeting. I like this gentleman more and more…

I just had a Hollywood meeting (he shared after offering our hellos).

Oh, how did that go?

…With a lot of we, yes and no’s and maybe.

Does that kind of thing infuriate you? I see you as more artiste than that. It doesn’t infuriate me as much as it puzzles me. But I thought, after Valhalla Rising, the perfect next film would be a Hollywood movie.

Seriously? That would be a very interesting step for you.

It would be the last frontier to go.

So I’ve been watching Valhalla and I’m shocked and amazed and a little creeped out… all good things.

That’s good.

Where did this story come from? This is a very dark and treacherous journey you are taking here.

Well the origin came from me wanting to – I guess when I was younger I had the idea to do a movie about Vikings. But I didn’t have real interest; I didn’t have an interest in Vikings.

Really?

I guess that, I thought I was interested in Vikings, but then I realized I wasn’t. But I was interested in making a movie about the discovery of America. And I was interested in that because I came to America when I was 8. So I think there was a lot of myself in that whole plot. Originally I heard this story on the radio when I was younger, about a ruin stone which was found down the way in Washington which is a big puzzle because how could something get so South and also, a lot of people didn’t believe that the Vikings had been to America before Columbus.

Later on, when the settlements were discovered in Newfoundland it became apparent even over here, and the sagas always referred to the wine country so everybody knew they’d been there. But a ruin stone was found South in Delaware. It was a big puzzle. Because you know they had gone back far, England, and from the story we began to speculate what happened. And the whole idea that a ship had sailed into America much more South and got lost or something else happened. The stone is a warning, like a signal. Like Alien, remember?

Absolutely.

And I was sixteen when I heard it and I thought, God that’s a great story. And when I completed the Pusher trilogy, I thought it was time to make this movie. And of course, I approached it in all the wrong ways, but you have to. Until I went back… and what I really wanted was to make a science fiction movie maybe, but without science. So then, to travel to America would be for us, maybe going to Mars. So that’s where the whole thing originated from. Of course it evolved over the last four years since I started it.

Generally when this type of film is done, it is big and loud and over the top, but with this, there is a quiet storm which makes the violence even more intense when it occurs. It was almost dreamlike for much of it. Was that your approach?

Well the film was almost like a drug film. Not that you are supposed to take drugs at the movie, but the movie is the drug. That is why also, certain people love it and certain people hate it, but to love you they have to hate you, and vice versa.

I find it very interesting when things go slow. Because building some kind of trance can be very rewarding, but it means you have to let yourself go through the movie, not vice versa. So we are used to seeing entertainment that we control, because we can control when we want to see it. And we can control it because it’s made for us. But when we see something else, when we have to control you, it can be very provocative. Especially with Bronson, when I shot the movie back to back, it was always about moving fast when it was the exact opposite. But there is no point in moving fast when you are traveling to the black void of nothingness. It’s like going into space, and you decide you are not going to the stars; you are going to go beyond.

To the black hole right?

Yeah.

I also really appreciated the color that you use to paint in this film. How difficult was it to try and color this picture the way you did?

It wasn’t really difficult, originally this film was going to be shot more like I did the Pusher films. But then I realized A) It wouldn’t fit the story. And B) physically, the photographer couldn’t move around. So it became more of the static approach using images as part of a puzzle as to [the character] “One Eye”.

I’m color blind, so red always becomes a very main factor into the film. It’s my favorite color. And since I really can’t see some colors, it was a very… that is usually the way it works, and we do all the coloring in post. I shot it on Red, the camera, so it was very good.

Where did you shoot the film?

The whole movie was shot in Scotland.

Was it a difficult shoot? Yes!

It looks like it.

Just ask Mads Mikkelson since it physically… since I got so obsessed with being remote and having very little money and not a lot of time to make the film. So it was about going as far as I could into the wilderness and the weather would just change from snow to almost rain to summer within days. Just the harshness of the landscape itself was very… but it added to the film, where it became like the Pusher films, the urban environment is very much a character within and this was the same thing.

Was Mads involved from the beginning?

Yes. He was always thought of as “One Eye”.

Did you put him through any training, or was it hiring a stunt coordinator and getting the action down?

Hiring a stunt coordinator and getting the action down, because it was very much about creating the fights and making them as authentic as possible without having them staged. And Mads is a very physical man. So a lot of those fights were very easy for him to get himself into.

Did you find that the success of Bronson opened a lot of doors for you?

Especially over here in America…

Is Drive next for you officially?

Yeah, we are shooting September 20th.

What can you tell us about it?

It’s based on a James Sallis novel called “Drive”. It’s about a stuntman by day and getaway driver by night. Ryan Gosling plays that character. And it’s all shooting in Los Angeles.