Severed Ways
| Severed Ways | |
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| Directed by | Tony Stone |
| Produced by | Tony Stone |
| Written by | Tony Stone |
| Starring | Tony Stone Fiore Tedesco |
| Cinematography | Nathan Corbin Damien Paris |
| Edited by | Tony Stone |
| Distributed by | Magnolia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Box office | $18,728 |
Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America is a 2007 independent adventure drama film that tells a story of Norse explorers battling nature, natives and Christianity in North America in the year 1007 AD. It was written, directed, edited and produced by Tony Stone who also plays one of the lead characters.
The story is told in near-documentary film fashion, using only natural light, with an initial shaky camera technique that eventually slows down into smoother cinematography. It has very little dialog and a soundtrack featuring anachronistic heavy metal music. Though unrated, the film shows human-to-human violence, animal killing, defecation, and sex.
The film received mixed reviews, with critics commenting on aspects of poor production quality and on Stone's innovative use of the camera.
Two Viking men are stranded in northeastern North America when their party of explorers loses a battle with Skraelings (indigenous peoples). The two men move northward, hoping to link up with an expedition led by Leif Ericson. They deal differently with the grim situation, one turning inward spiritually and the other reverting to a primal state, but both men are beset with memories of their earlier lives. Orn (Tony Stone) remembers his wife (Gaby Hoffmann), and Volnard (Fiore Tedesco) flashes back to his childhood home and his Christian sister (Clare Amory) who committed suicide after Volnard killed the man who converted her to Christianity. Traveling, they encounter two Irish monks who have escaped from another Viking party—one monk (Sean Dooley) is murdered at first, and a makeshift Christian church is burned down. The other monk (David Perry) joins the journey. The Viking men disagree about the monk and they separate. On his own, Orn meets a beautiful native Abenaki woman (Noelle Bailey) who drugs and rapes him. Volnard bonds with the surviving Christian monk who washes his feet. An Abenaki man trails Volnard, intending to kill him. The two Vikings are reunited, but Orn kills the monk, the Abenaki man kills Volnard, and Orn builds a funeral pyre for his dead countryman. The strange cold land ultimately prevails over Orn.
The film's setting was inspired by the story of Thorfinn Karlsefni, an Icelandic explorer who followed Leif Ericson to Vinland (North America) hoping to establish a colony at the beginning of the 11th century.
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