When the Raven Flies (1984) (original) (raw)
Synopsis
Vikings pillage Ireland, seeking silver and slaves, slaying men and women in the process. A young boy is spared when a Viking takes pity on him instead of killing him. Twenty years later the boy returns to Iceland take his revenge.
Cast
Popular reviews
Was not expecting to see another viking “western” after Mario Bava’s Knives of the Avenger. So it was an awesome surprise to realize that not only was When The Raven Flies/Hrafninn flýgur exactly that, but was also a revenge saga inspired by Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars. A Viking raid on Ireland leaves parents dead, a sister taken, and a young boy spared. Twenty years later, that young boy is a stoic warrior arriving on Icelandic shore to avenge, rescue, and kill.
Hrafn Gunnlaugsson’s first entry in his Raven trilogy is a brooding deliberately-paced tale as “Gest” (simply guest, much in the vein of Mifune’s “Kuwabatake Sanjuro” or Eastwood’s “Manco”) cunningly pits Viking blood-brothers against eachother. The scale is small…
Excellent Icelandic Viking revenge movie, featuring some beautiful locations, strong performances and frequent knife throwing action.
Yet When the Raven Flies deviates from straight historical action/drama in that it's infused with an overt spaghetti western vibe.
It also features a bewilderingly brilliant soundtrack that I can only describe as stone cold Viking funk.
It's a cold and gloomy spaghetti western about vikings with a pan pipe funk and dungeon synth soundtrack!
You're sold right?
with The Northman on my immediate cinematic horizons I decided to actually watch what was so frequently deemed Viking Yojimbo and having seen it now I must say it’s like calling Tetsuo The Iron Man “_Japanese Eraserhead_” which is to say it’s extremely reductive but functional.
I would say two things really distinguish this from Yojimbo, the texture of the movie and the incredible soundscape. the amazing soundscape. now Masaru Satoh is an icon who produced god knows how many amazing and memorable numbers in his time, but the soundtrack to this movie is legitimately some of the most incredible and quirky and bizarre yet always fitting…I dunno, nordicwave shit I’ve ever heard? it’s like if Waldruna and Danheim got…
If Iceland's own newspaper (Kjarnnin) voted When the Raven Flies as the "best Icelandic film of all time", that really doesn't say much for Icelandic cinema as a whole. It's a TV movie-quality slog trying to tell an epic revenge story (in the same vein as Yojimbo, apparently?), but ultimately feeling more like a bargain-bin The Northman. Beyond the annoyingly repetitive score and painfully anticlimactic final showdown, this is too dull to elicit any emotional reaction whatsoever, even on a "so-bad-it's-good" level.
Of all the Icelandic films I've seen this is definitely the first. When the Raven Flies (or Hrafninn flýgur to give the original title) is essentially one more riff on Yojimbo (1962) along with a pretty standard revenge story. The interest comes in the setting, the viking ages of yore, and the dramatic landscape of Iceland that Hollywood has just rediscovered in the last few years. Our man character is a stoic Toshiro Mifune/Clint Eastwood type who is seeking vengeance on the longship raiders who killed his parents and kidnapped his sister, and 20 years later tracks them down where he will exploit his knowledge of contemporary Norwegian politics to get his enemies fighting one another in addition to stabbing…
Ísland þarf að locka in og gera fleiri svona myndir.
Some of the scenery in this film was breathtaking. I enjoyed how it felt authentic to the time period.
A low budget viking revenge drama that draws a shitload of inspiration from Sergio Leone. Last time I saw this was on vhs back in the eighties and I am content with the fact that it has aged fairly well. The script is good, the setting is nice and the only thing that lets the movie down is the very dated soundtrack, to much funky beats and flute.
And it really needs a decent release I watched it on a decent vhs rip.
People were not kidding with The Northman comparisons. Obviously a much older, much lower budget affair, but hard not to see it, having watched them close to each other. A great location, with an always timely meditation on cycles of violence.
Útgáfan af Á sprengisandi í myndinni er ekki til á spotify btw 💔
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