Medieval Studies Program
1267 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1267

Office: 541-346-4069
FAX: (541) 346-4118
midages@uoregon.edu

The Thirteenth Warrior (3 stars) 1999. 102 minutes.

The Thirteenth Warrior is John McTiernan's 1999 reworking of Michael Creighton's novella, The Eaters of the Dead. Antonio Banderas plays the part of Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, a foppish courtier at an Islamic court in the year 922. After Fahdlan has an affair with another courtier's wife, the caliph punishes Fahdlan by "promoting" him to an ambassadorial position to the court of a northern king. Fahdlan sees the appointment for what it is meant to be: exile amidst a barbaric culture. Once he arrives there, however, his run of misfortune continues. The old king is dead, and the new king of the Northmen determines to travel across the ocean to a distant island, in order to aid King Hrothgar (Sven Wolter), whose hall, Heorot, has fallen victim to depredations of unknown, monstrous half-men who eat the fallen warriors. Sound familiar, O readers of Beowulf?

Our Islamic hero finds himself an unwilling participant in the adventure when a local witch performs a divination for the northern king. She predicts that the mission will only be successful if thirteen warriors undertake it. Twelve of the warriors must be Northmen, and the thirteenth warrior must be a foreigner. As the only foreigner present, Fahdlan becomes the candidate though he is unable to speak the language, and has more skill at writing poetry and reciting the Koran than wielding the sword.

Because Fahdlan cannot initially speak the Northmen's tongue, medievalist viewers in the audience will enjoy the workout of their medieval Greek and Latin. If you listen closely, however, you will note that the actors playing the barbarian tribes are speaking modern Norwegian rather than Old Norse or Anglo-Saxon! To get the most enjoyment from the film, I would recommend re-reading Beowulf before you watch it, in order to catch the gratuitous adaptations from the poem. If the Beowulf scribe were alive and writing today, he could certainly sue for copyright infringement. The king and his warriors state various aphorisms directly from the text, such as "Fate often spares the undoomed man, if his courage is good." Indeed, if the viewer pays close attention, he will find the story is an unabashed reworking of the Beowulf legend, complete with similar battle sequences--one against the cannibalistic Wendol, one against a monstrous mother-figure, and even one against a fire-wyrm (of sorts).

Some weak notes are that the film is obviously shot in the Pacific Northwest (logging roads are visible in one shot, and the omnipresent Pacific trillium gives away geographic location). Also, the movie goes to some length to provide rational, scientific explanations of the Beowulf monsters. Grendel is replaced by a rather ahistorical re-creation of the Wendols as prehistoric cavemen. If you notice the religious icons of the Wendols, you will see they are reproductions of the Venus of Villandorf--big-breasted, faceless women as fertility totems dating from about 5,000 BCE. The implication seems to be that the Wendol men-monsters are so strong and so inhuman because they are the last remnant of the Neanderthals. Likewise, Creighton "adapts" Grendel's mother and the fire-wyrm, rationalizing their existence with non-supernatural explanations.

The movie is enjoyable in spite of these pseudo-scientific explanations. The strongest point to the film is the well-paced narrative. The audience will neither find itself bored by slow-paced events, nor overwhelmed by gratuitous action. Likewise, the story takes particular pains to reveal the hidden political subtleties underlying the apparent brutality of the Germanic tribes, as Fahdlan comes to appreciate. And finally, there is a certain pleasure in watching the development of Fahdlan's character, who moves from snobbery and cowardice to a grudging appreciation of the Northmen's culture, and then ultimately discovers his own best self in the alien setting. The Thirteenth Warrior is not the most thought provoking of films, but it is fun. It captures something of the gloom and grandeur of the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, even as it reshapes it anew.

--Kip Wheeler