Here’s something I never thought would happen.

This is going to be a very gushing, starstruck post and I apologise in advance. 🙂 Now, those of you who know me outside of this blog in real life probably know that I don’t really care about stars and celebrities and that I probably wouldn’t recognise any of the big movie names if I saw them walking down the street. However, I do have one celebrity crush and that’s Viggo Mortensen. Yes, it’s the guy who played Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies and no, it’s not just because he’s a very handsome man.

Obviously I became a fan because of how well he carried off the whole mysterious stinky wanderer Aragorn look and because his accent makes him sound like the sexiest man alive, but then I started watching his other movies and I was pretty impressed from all other perspectives as well. He’s worked on some really good movies with epic directors like David Cronenberg and he’s consistently great in all those roles, particularly in intelligent drama films. So, if you need movie recommendations, I can’t recommend these enough:

• A Dangerous Method (an amazing drama about Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst, his first hysteric patient and his falling out with Sigmund Freud)
• Two Faces of January (a very classy thriller about a con-artist, his wife and a man who gets caught up in a private detective’s death)
• The Road (a heavy post-apocalyptic drama about a man and his son on a journey through a dead world full of violence, made after a book)
• Eastern Promises (an action packed crime drama centered around a diary, which ties a Russian mob family to a violent crime)
• A History of Violence (a thriller drama about an ordinary man in a small town, who prevents a robbery and becomes a local hero, but gets mistaken for a man with a violent past and enemies out for revenge)
• Green book (a comedy drama inspired by real events, where a prejudiced Italian-American bouncer becomes the driver of an African-American classic pianist and drives him to concerts in the deep south of the USA during the 60s)
• The Portrait of a Lady (a romance drama about an American heiress who falls in love with the wrong man)

Not to mention the man speaks like 9 languages almost fluently, doesn’t really care about fame and keeps to himself, owns a publishing house and is also a photographer, jazz musician, a painter and a poet. I could go on about his awesomeness and how he’s known for being super authentic, but I’ll spare you and just say that I think I’m allowed to have a crush on someone that interesting, right?

Anyhow, although I’m a fan, I didn’t really entertain the thought that I’d ever get in contact with him in any way, but then my favourite Slovenian cinema Kinodvor decided to host a premiere of his new movie, Falling. It’s the first film Viggo has ever directed and maybe we got lucky because the movie industry is desperate for money in these new corona times, but somehow they got him and the lead actor Lance Henriksen to join them on Skype after the movie. Obviously I bought the tickets as soon as I could and I even brought my mother along as a treat for her birthday, because she’s also a Viggo fan, and now I get to cross another, super unexpected, item off my bucket list.

The cinema recorded the conversation and they were even taking questions from the audience, so of course I had to ask something. Turns out my question was fairly unique and and made both of them laugh, so I can now say that I got to “talk” to Viggo Mortensen, and about mushrooms of all things! You can check out the video below. My question from the audience is at around minute 57 and the hype is real! <3

As for the movie itself, I wasn’t sure to expect to be honest. Although I’m a huge fan, I once watched a very artsy movie called Jauja, which was two hours of pure torture (whatever you do, do not watch that), so a part of me was afraid Mortensen would make his first movie too artsy for us normal people to understand. I don’t know why I worried though, because Falling was awesome and it delivered on all fronts.

Falling is an impressive drama about the relationship between a father and a son. The father is a grumpy, politically incorrect old fart with an onset of dementia, who will have you laughing with his rude comments, while the son is a middle aged married gay man living in California. Although the movie deals with a heavy topic and a toxic relationship between the two of them, it’s full of beautiful nature shots, timely transitions into memories of both characters, funny or heartwarming family scenes and so many details that it doesn’t feel like a heavy, sad drama. What I loved most of all however, is how human and relatable the whole story is. There are good and bad times for the family and although the father is quite horrible, I love that the movie doesn’t judge him for the viewer and somehow even makes his ultimate death a beautiful thing.

The whole movie is absolutely beautiful and extremely well thought out to the last detail + the lead actor who plays the father did it so well it’s crazy. I also loved that Viggo not only directed the movie, but also played the role of the son, wrote the music, got David Cronenberg to play a proctologist and even thanked the horses in the end credits. What more could you possibly want in a directing debut?

So, did I convince you to watch a Viggo movie? To borrow the hashtag from the cinema, it’s #viggoseason (they’re showing his movies during the whole October and you can guess who’s going to the cinema 7 times this month, heh). And also, who is your celebrity crush? 🙂