Academy Award-nominated Icelandic-Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson and screenwriter Andrew Rai Berzins tackle some weighty subject matter (including religion and politics) in their new adaptation of the earliest English-language epic poem, Beowulf & Grendel. The filmmaking team modified the tale, about a battle between hero and troll, from its Christian verse in order to make it fit better with current social mores.
Gunnarsson explains how the original Norse tale of Beowulf was passed on orally until the English translated it into a poem that featured a heavily Christian “moralistic tone.” Grendel became the “embodiment of evil,” while Beowulf was virtuous, and the tale became the foundation of the “hero myth.”
The director points out that he and Berzins sought to examine the hero myth from a modern perspective, by giving Beowulf flawed ideals and adding a compassionate element to Grendel, who no longer plays the devil’s proxy.
By returning Grendel to the natural world and stripping the creature of his nefarious aura, Gunnarsson feels that he has brought the tale back to its origins.
“In the (Norse) pagan literature you don’t have these kinds of simplistic notions of good and evil…so in a way we kind of took the poem back to its pagan roots and modernized it at the same time,” Gunnarsson laughs.
In order to incorporate the religious element of the poem, Gunnarsson’s film features a subplot involving Christian missionaries who convert the Norse pagans.
“It was kind of a nod to the genesis of the poem itself,” the director explains. “This is the historical moment where the pagan culture of many gods is giving way to the Christian culture of one god, [which featured] this very clear-cut notion of good and evil. And in a polytheistic universe, everything is more complex than that.”
Gunnarsson adds that the Christian translation’s treatment of Grendel in the poem is an example of how “we make monsters of those things we don’t understand… Not unlike the White House,” Gunnarsson adds, making a subtle reference to the so-called War on Terror.
The director clarifies: “You can certainly say that this is the story of a soldier who goes overseas to fight what he thinks is a righteous war and discovers that he is in the middle of a tribal feud. These past few years have seen this rise in warrior culture. There are an awful lot of people going around saying that God is on their side these days. Certainly that informs this story.”
Gunnarsson’s parallels between the classic epic poem and today’s calamities advocates a notion that history has been beguiled by fabrications similar to those of current politics and religious fanaticism. But he wants to point out that his movie, like the source material itself, isn’t all dark.
“Tell your friends it’s okay to laugh-it’s supposed to be funny,” quips the laid-back veteran of Canadian cinema and television. “Sometimes people sit in the theatre and you can see they want to laugh, but [it’s like] they don’t know if they are allowed to.”
