Prince of Jutland

Plot

Prince Amled saw his father, King Hardvendel of the Danes, and his brother murdered. The killers were his uncle Fenge and Fenge's men. The shock seemed to make Amled go mad on the spot, and he fell into a near-catatonic state.

Because he could not speak about what he saw, he was not killed himself. The bodies of the king and the prince were taken back to the castle, where Amled's mother, Geruth, was overcome with grief. Fenge told Geruth he had arrived only after the murders and had no idea who did it.

She believed him and turned to him for comfort. Fenge was crowned king and declared Geruth his queen. As the funeral pyres burned, Amled noted that fire destroys even a great king.

Amled kept acting strangely, but Fenge began to suspect the prince might be faking. Fenge's men took Amled into the woods and left him with a woman named Gunvor. Amled and Gunvor had sex, and afterward she admitted that Fenge had sent her to test him, but she promised not to tell anyone he was sane. They continued meeting in secret.

While most of the men were away from the castle, Amled killed Ribold, Fenge's chief lieutenant. He then told Geruth that he had been sane all along and that Fenge was the one who murdered her husband and other son. She swore she would never sleep with Fenge again and urged Amled to kill his uncle and take the throne.

Fenge's henchman Frovin found Ribold's bloody tunic in a pig trough, and Fenge learned that Gunvor was pregnant with Amled's child. Convinced the prince was sane, Fenge announced he was sending Amled to visit Duke Aethelwine in the Kingdom of Lindsey on the island of Great Britain. As Gunvor watched Amled's ship leave, Fenge's man Ragnar killed her. During the voyage, Amled discovered a letter Fenge had written to Aethelwine ordering Amled's execution.

He changed the message so it appeared Fenge wanted two henchmen, Aslak and Torsten, killed instead. On his first night in Lindsey, the servants were hanged. Amled acted shocked and claimed to know nothing, so Aethelwine paid him a large sum in gold as compensation.

The Kingdom of Lindsey was at war and lost a battle. Amled took charge of the soldiers and used guerrilla tactics to win a surprise victory. He married Aethelwine's daughter, Ethel, and then set sail for home.

Reception

Spectrum Culture described the film as unusual, refreshing, and slightly bleak, noting that deliberate artistic and stylistic choices sometimes leave the film feeling flat, particularly in clumsy fight sequences. Variety called it a deliberate deconstruction of the Shakespeare play, shorn of familiar elements, with its only concession to mainstream entertainment being Per Norgaard's bright score in the first half.

Time Out labeled it a major disappointment after Babette's Feast. DoBlu remarked that most of the budget likely went to the cast, resulting in basic sets and cable telefilm standards for costumes. Helen Mirren .net observed that the film's major flaw is its concern with looking like the 12th century in all its blandness, with little for the eye and not much action.