Ordet - La parola

Time for my annual dose of Dreyer, taken like medicine. Is it fair that Dreyer has a reputation of being turgid, slow, archaic, depressing, theatrical? Well, yes. Look at this. A large part of the time is spent watching people walk slowly from one side of the room to the other. In fact, this seems to be Dreyer's main directorial idea because the rest of the time they just stand there like hatstands. At climactic moments a door may be opened. There is no attempt to vary pace or tone; the dialogue is as stilted as silent movie cards. In fact, this looked and felt like a film made in 1915, not 1955.

The film presents a Danish society so insular that subtle shades of Christianity tear them apart. That might be interesting if treated with any sort of subtlety or depth. Not here, where the plot is built with a few huge stone bricks. And we have not one but two of the most morose characters in all cinema. Old Borgen, who has the lion's share of the dialogue, always stares fixedly into the middle-distance while speaking - I presumed he was reading his lines off a card.

Dreyer is a man entirely without humour. The mad son Johannes looks like Rasputin with slicked down hair and an immaculate centre-parting; he thinks he is Christ and walks in and out slowly spouting religious twaddle in a high pitched monotone with no facial movement whatsoever. Perhaps Dreyer was paying homage to Ed Wood here. Johannes' every appearance is unintentionally hilarious. If he can't see this, Dreyer really must have something missing. If you're not laughing at Johannes yourself every time he appears, I'm not sure I want to know you.

And never have I been so let down by the ending of a film. A literal deus ex machina that I simply found intellectually offensive - all the more so because we can see it coming a long way back but are still led at snail's pace towards it.

Painfully sincere, and good for the soul maybe, but woefully unaccomplished. To be enjoyed only by Quakers.