Synopsis

Without Mercy is the story of two mountain farmers, Otto and his son Johannes, on the Hardanger mountain plateau in Norway, at the end of the 19th century. When the two men return to their small mountain farm after hunting reindeer late in autumn to secure food for the winter, they find both their wives, Liv and Henriette, brutally murdered. After burying their loved ones and a short night’s sleep, Johannes and Otto ride out the next morning to seek vengeance.

They follow the killers’ horse tracks along the North road across the plateau, to a lumbering camp in the lowlands. They both take work as lumberers, and as winter comes and the snow covers the trees and the ground, the identities of the killers are uncovered, and a brutal showdown in the snow-clad forest between Otto, Johannes and the three murderers will only leave one survivor.


Project

This is a Northern Western, unlike any film made in Europe before. Never have the Nordic countries explored the inherent beauty and brutality of the northern landscape, and the harsh lifestyle of earlier times through a story in the western tradition. This film will bring a visually exotic, emotionally engaging, and brutal story to the screen.

It is a classical revenge story, which we all know from the genre, but it is also the story of family, of trust and betrayal, and of a humble and stoic life in the Norwegian mountains at the end of the 19th century. It is a portrait of an era where nature was the people's best friend, and worst enemy; when they lived off the earth, and respected nature’s power over life and death. It is an elegy over a time when most parts of Norway were sustained by farming, hunting, fishing and lumbering. A time when people only had each other, first of all family and friends, and the fun, games, music and stories that would be enjoyed, had to be created with their own two hands, their self-taught skills, and their imagination.