In our age of myriad streaming platforms, most people live with the false belief that almost every movie ever made is available in one form or another. This is simply not the case. There are thousands of lost films and many films that exist in degraded formats without decent 35mm printing. In the case of the latter films, barring an expensive restoration, they will always look dodgy. And over time, streaming versions of these films, sometimes ripped from an old VHS release (which was formatted to fit a 4×3 screen), might simply disappear (then you’ll be forced to search for a pirated copy).
Hrafn Gunnlaugsson’s Viking yarn “When the Raven Flies” is currently hanging in such a perilous state. Released in 1984 and selected to be Iceland’s nominee for Best International Feature Film (and then Best Foreign Film) at that year’s Academy Awards (it was not selected), this 9th-century tale about an Irishman seeking revenge on the Vikings who killed his parents is currently viewable on YouTube in a naively cropped 480p presentation. I doubt that’s how Gunnlaugsson, 77, would prefer to view his film, which /Film has considered one of the 14 best Viking films ever made, but, for some reason, that’s all we have. And that’s a shame because Gunnlaugsson’s film is a unique entry into the Viking film genre.
When the Raven Flies is a Viking film made like a spaghetti western
You probably didn’t know you needed a Viking movie inspired by “Yojimbo,” but “When the Crow Flies” is a convincingly brutal companion to Akira Kurosawa’s classic, as well as Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western riff “A Fistful of Dollars.” (Gunnlaugsson’s films were called “Cod Westerns.”) Jakob Þór Einarsson stars as Gestur, an Irishman who travels to Iceland to pit two rival Viking factions against each other to exact bloody vengeance for the cold-blooded murder of his parents. There is an interesting twist here in that her still-living sister, an unnamed character played by Edda Björgvinsdóttir, was kidnapped by the Vikings as a child and is unwilling to help her with her task.
Also interesting: the weaponry. There are no epic sword fights in “When the Raven Flies.” Instead, much of the fighting takes place with knives, which are often thrown (a la James Coburn in “The Magnificent Seven” or Tomas Millian in “The Big Gundown”). I’m far from a Viking history buff, but this is apparently not historically inaccurate for the time (although the lack of axes, which they used, is curious). Regardless, Gunnlaugsson, clearly working on a small budget, makes the most of this decision, framing the action with careful attention to the placement of his actors in the background and foreground. It’s not a polished film by any means, but Gunnlaugsson has polished direction, which is something I can’t say about most digital filmmakers these days.
You should check out “When the Raven Flies” on YouTube, if only because you never know when this video is going to disappear. We hope Gunnlaugsson can one day raise the funds needed to restore his film.
