#imagine the contrast between the inner dialogue and the dialogue between them now that’s horror

[ratmonky]

starting my 2024 year with another ratmonky banger 😤 needed the mei mei cooch bad

thank yeww 💜 i’ll put out more works frequently this year if you guys collectively pray for my ruined hair to grow out asap and leave comments ofc

[dweemeister]

Ordet (1955, Denmark)

By the 1950s, Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer had made eleven films. However, his last three works were victims of circumstance. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) consistently ranks high in film critics’ lists of the greatest movies ever made, but it offended ardent French nationalists who resisted the idea of a Dane directing a movie about one of the nation’s secondary patron saints. Vampyr (1932), in its stillness and languor befitting its disturbing atmosphere, was despised by audiences – including a riot from Viennese moviegoers demanding a refund – expecting more action. Day of Wrath (1943) released a firestorm of controversy in Nazi-occupied Denmark because of its allegory about living under an authoritarian regime. All three of these films were commercial failures. All three of these films are today considered cinematic exemplars.

Danish movie producers might have sneezed, claiming imaginary allergies, at the notion of financing the next Dreyer film, but the Danish government decided to reward Dreyer – struggling with finances after World War II – with a lifelong lease to the Dagmar, the state arthouse movie theater. With a morsel of the Dagmar’s profits, Dreyer sought a project he could make on a shoestring budget. Dreyer’s twelfth film would be Ordet (“The Word” in English), based on a play of the same name by Lutheran pastor Kaj Munk. Ordet is a severe film that never loses hold of an attentive viewer. It contains a provocative ending that cannot (and will not) be spoiled, and it is an ideal follow-up to The Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath in that this piece examines the nature of faith. Instead of probing why the film’s characters believe (or don’t believe) in God, its focus is instead on how the characters express their belief.

In the autumn of 1925, widowed Borgen family patriarch Morten (Henrik Malberg) is a devout farmer soon to be busy with doting on his third, incoming grandchild. Morten has three sons: his eldest, Mikkel (Emil Hass Christensen), is agnostic, married to Inger (Birgitte Federspeil), and the couple have taken care of Morten’s two grandchildren; middle son Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) went mad studying Søren Kierkegaard’s texts and now believes himself to be Jesus Christ; and youngest son Anders (Cay Kristiansen), the center of the film’s attention for a plurality of its runtime, is lovesick. The entire Borgen family lives under the same roof – creating tension, but Morten is nevertheless proud of “Borgensfarm”.

Anders and Anne Petersen (Gera Nielsen) wish to marry. Anne’s father Peter (Ejner Federspiel), is the local leader of the conservative Inner Mission sect of Lutheranism; Anders and Anne correctly believe he will oppose the marriage. Peter’s standoffish rejection inspires Morten – also originally in opposition – to change his mind. He stomps over to Peter’s residence, arriving mid-sermon, and failing to sway his friend. Peter’s telephone rings as they argue, and Peter must bear news of a family emergency at Borgensfarm.

Pacing and an intricate plot are of no concern to Dreyer. For the film’s opening two-thirds, Dreyer – who wrote the adapted screenplay – takes all the time needed to let the audience know the lives of the Borgens. The love shared between all three generations of the Borgen family is never questioned, although their understanding of and relationship with God differs. Because of my lack of religious belief, I do not know how to accurately describe Dreyer’s comparison of Morten and Peter other than the former is less beholden to religious dogma than the latter. The agnostic Mikkel believes God as essentially dead, forsaking long ago the children of Earth to the kindness and cruelty of their neighbors. No one in the Borgen household condemns or lampoons Mikkel for not believing. Certainly not Inger, who sympathizes with this struggle of faith. Not even Johannes, the most difficult son to truly understand. Johannes, speaking Jesus’ words from scripture and words that one could imagine Jesus might have said in rural 1920s Denmark, appears as a cloud-gazing, simply-clothed itinerant by day. His words are lofty, his speech deliberate, his empty gaze distancing him from those who surround him. He asks others to pray and believe, never wrathful if they do not listen or heed his advice. By night, he returns home as he always has done. Though he no longer addresses his father, brothers, sister-in-law, and nieces as his father, brothers, sister-in-law, and nieces, they still treat him as family – even though they do not accept him as Christ. For Anders, he is obviously preoccupied with the woman he loves.

Ordet is structured around the domestic lives and habits of its characters – it is akin to free verse poetry, resisting any attempts at novelistic analysis. Characters fully express themselves, and dialogue never overlaps between speakers (even in argument). There is silence after completed statements of opinion and revelation. In that silence, Dreyer’s camera captures the listener’s reaction (except for Johannes, who does not visually react): contentment, disbelief, amusement, concern, horror, understanding. This is executed in the mostly empty spaces of the Borgen household, against clear backdrops. In the dialogue pauses during and between conversations, all one can hear is ambient noise: the floorboards creaking as a character is making their way across the room, the clock ticking in the parlor room, someone shuffling positions in their chair. Cinematographer Henning Bendtsen (1959’s Boy of Two Worlds, 1991’s Europa) keeps his camera distant – of Ordet’s 114 total shots (averaging more than sixty seconds each between cuts), only three are close-ups. It is as if there is a presence accompanying the characters even in the most ordinary scenes, but that presence is something unknowable, something beyond an individual’s understanding of God.

Bendtsen’s mastery of mise en scène (a concept that is generally defined as the combination of set design, shot composition, and actor placement to empower cinematic or theatrical art) culminates when Mikkel’s oldest daughter, Maren (Ann Elisabeth Groth), walks into the parlor room to see her uncle Johannes waiting in the dark. Inger has gone into labor; her pregnancy endangering her life. Maren has overheard how perilous her mother’s situation is from the adults and cannot sleep.

She asks Johannes if her mother will die soon; he responds, “Do you want her to, little girl?” The camera cuts. “Yes, because then you’ll bring her back to life, won’t you?” It is a curious response that raises unanswered questions how Mikkel’s two girls view Johannes as an uncle and as a self-proclaimed Christ. The others will not allow me to perform this miracle, notes Johannes, as the camera begins to slowly revolve around them. Maren and Johannes have a late-night conversation about what happens when a mother goes to heaven and miracles. The gradual dolly shot going across Johannes and Maren’s front sides display the empty depths of the parlor room, suggesting something there. Again, it suggests something beyond our conception of God. Maren and Johannes’ conversation adds to this, as Johannes comforts Maren, imparting that mothers will be with their children even in death, without the stress of other things during the day. In three minutes, a creaking floorboard, ticking clock, Johannes’ blank face, and the familial tenderness between the two actors have encapsulated what Ordet conveys to open-minded viewers of all faiths.

All of this is demanding, in different ways, for the acting ensemble and the audience. In many films (especially today’s cinema), editors will cut quickly from reactions to dialogue or during dialogue – serving to either undermine an actor’s ability or conceal their shortcomings. Because of the camerawork and minimal editing, there is little room for any mediocre acting to hide in Ordet (which contains stellar performances from its ensemble), a production that asks its actors to inhabit their characters for lengthy stretches without a cut. In a way, this harkens to Ordet’s background as a stage play, but the film adaptation does not feel stage-bound. For the audience, the barely moving camera and thoughtful pace can be an impediment to the impatient. But I suspect many viewers – as I did – will have difficulty unpackaging Johannes. Johannes, with all credit to Preben Lerdorff Rye, seems like he accidentally walked onto the wrong movie set and began acting thinking he was shooting for that other production. That last sentence could be construed as disparagement, but it is not – Rye’s performance befits the character, and Dreyer’s intention to perplex viewers with Johannes’ presence is controlled and purposeful.

Johannes’ presence in Ordet strikes at unsettling ideas for Christians and non-Christians alike, and these conflicting ideas are integral to the film’s controversial final ten minutes. In contrast to Morten’s comfortable, undemanding religiosity and the Inner Mission’s stringent emphasis on dogma, Johannes’ claims to be Christ is unnerving. The New Testament is filled with parables, gospels, and miracles told and performed by Christ. The Borgen family and the Inner Mission sect adherents would rather Jesus be dead, with God’s physical embodiment and judgment removed from the corporeal world humans share, than believe Johannes to be the son of God. Every character in Ordet except Johannes believes that the days of God’s miracles have passed; to some viewers, the film may seem to endorse this view. But Dreyer’s intentions are not to evangelize on behalf of any Christian belief – Dreyer, according to film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, was not religious and his occasional visits to a French Reformed church were attempts to familiarize himself with Christian colloquialisms for his film projects. Dreyer wants to understand how religion plays a role in the lives of the Borgens and the film’s secondary characters and how they express their faith. He succeeds.

By the time Ordet’s final act begins, the viewer is probably still wondering how such an apparently simple film that may have bored them in the opening half-hour has convinced them to finish it – barreling into the thickets of one’s soul with unexpected force. Dreyer and the actors have outlined their characters completely, allowing observant viewers intuit each character’s reactions to the mundane and the sublime. The film’s paradoxical and transcendent conclusion provides these characters and the audience an ending that we desperately desire, but also challenges that desire to question our faith.

For the first time since the silent era, Carl Theodor Dreyer had made a film that was instantly acclaimed by critics and audiences in Denmark and abroad – including receiving the Golden Lion at the 1955 Venice Film Festival and a joint Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film shared with four other movies. Despite Ordet’s success, Dreyer would continue to struggle in finding funds to make another film. Dreyer made only one more film in Gertrud (1964), and a long-gestating project about Jesus (no surprise that Dreyer would consider making such a film) never came to fruition, although a manuscript outlining the film was published in 1968.

As someone who was never raised with much of an understanding of the Abrahamic religions, I nevertheless find films commenting about the nature of religious belief fascinating. Almost all these films, due to demographics and religious history, have been within Christianity’s folds. Too often faith is held as a nightstick for comic or dramatic purposes in narrative art – and this sort of art is neither challenging nor rewarding for anyone. In recent years, I have found glorious exceptions from Old Hollywood and in non-English-language cinema that put to shame the evangelical-specific, exclusionary present of the American Christian film industry. Ordet is arguably one of the most exacting and illuminating religious films ever made. Late in Ordet, Dreyer’s film finds itself in a wallow of despair and ends with spirits exultant. Its ending – one that I desired – still leaves me uplifted and horrified.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.