Messiah Complex Blues

Film: Ordet
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.

I wanted to say that I tend to have a mixed reaction to the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer. I was genuinely moved by The Passion of Joan of Arc and genuinely bored by Vampyr, although it did have a distinctive look. And then I remembered that Dreyer was also responsible for Gertrud, a film that I believe concerns itself with the romantic life of mannequins. I went into Ordet with some hopes, but I tried my best to keep them moderate. Dreyer’s work has moved me to question why I watch these films, but it’s also given me one of the truly remarkable film experiences I’ve had doing this.

Ordet is a film that seems to touch more on the Passion side of things, but certainly has some connection to Vampyr as well. It is very much a film about religious faith and the lack of faith. It is also about the problems caused by differences of faith, familial duty, miracles, and insanity. Sounds pretty good, right?

Cheese(y) Danish

Film: Gertrud
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I think I have a pretty high threshold for certain things. I try very hard not to be frustrated by certain peculiarities of film. I don’t mind long shots, or films that sometimes seem to have no point. I don’t specifically bore easily. That’s worth noting, because I also have to admit that I was bored within the first 20 minutes of watching Dreyer’s Gertrud.

The problem with this film isn’t the story. Really, it’s not. Done in a different way, this could well be a fascinating tale of a woman so bent on finding a love worth keeping that it controls her entire life. It’s not, on its face, uninteresting. The problem comes with the way it is filmed, or in the direction given to our actors. Evidently, the direction that Dreyer gave everyone in this film is to imitate a mannequin as much as possible. Their roles are to stand still in one place, look in one direction, and speak lines at each other. Passion tends to be expressed by rubbing foreheads together and then gazing off into the distance instead of at the person in question.

At Least it Isn't Twilight

Film: Vampyr (The Vampire; Not Against the Flesh; Der Traum des Allan Grey)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I wonder sometimes how movies get selected for this list. I mean, how many vampire stories do we need? There are five versions of the basic “Dracula” story (the Bela Lugosi version, the one with Christopher Lee, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the two versions of Nosferatu) plus Lat den Ratte Komma In and this one, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr, which also has about 100 different names--The Vampire, Not Against the Flesh, and Der Traum des Allan Grey; if that’s not all, IMDB claims that this film is also called Castle of Doom, making me wonder exactly how many names one film needs. I may well be forgetting one or two vampire films as well. And for all these vampires, we still don’t get Lost Boys or Near Dark and get only one werewolf, two Romero-style zombies, and three Frankenstein pictures, one of which is parody. Seriously, I’m getting a little tired of the vampires.

My familiarity with Dreyer prior to this evening was limited to The Passion of Joan of Ark, which is a true masterpiece. Vampyr was poorly received upon release, but in more recent years has become considered one of his more important films. Having seen it, I’m not sure why it’s gotten this resurgence of critical acclaim. It’s not that good.

Our hero is an occultist named Allan Grey (Julian West), who arrives in a small town and immediately starts having some bizarre experiences. Truthfully, this is the most interesting part of the film, with some unusual effects used by Dreyer to produce an unsettling atmosphere. We see, for instance, the shadow of a man digging, but he’s digging in reverse, with the dirt flying up to his shovel and being laid carefully back into the ground. More disturbing and far more effective are the shadows of people, which move independently of the people themselves. This is a great effect, in part because it’s difficult to see that it’s happening at first. The realization that the shadows themselves appear to be living things is a wonderful moment (I watched that part twice just to have that experience again).

Suffice it to say that there’s a vampire preying on the area, and in particular on a pair of daughters of the local lord. The older daughter, Leone (Sybille Schmitz) is currently under attack while the younger daughter, Gisele (Rena Mandel) frets. Grey learns all he needs to know about the vampire from a book left to him by the girls’ father (Maurice Schutz), who is killed early on. However, Grey also spends most of his time dreaming or hallucinating while most of the killing-the-vampire grunt work gets handled by the servant (Albert Bras). This kills the mood for me in some ways—the hero really does nothing but observe; the servant is the one who figures everything out.

It’s evident throughout the film that Dreyer was working with non-actors here. Schmitz (a professional actress) is quite effective when the madness of becoming a vampire is on her, and some of her facial expressions are reminiscent (at least in terms of camera angle and intensity) of The Passion of Joan of Arc. Mandel as Gisele is routinely awful and wooden and particularly unnatural. When, near the end of the film, she stands in a rowboat for the entire trip, I was at first nonplussed by the action, and then realized that her acting there was no less unnatural than it was anywhere else.

What this film does very well is create a genuine atmosphere that, while not especially horrific, is at least reminiscent of what horror should be like. Things are just off-kilter enough to be disturbing and strange. Rather than being terrifying, it is unsettling. The audience can’t simply witness what is happening on the screen, but has to actively attempt to decipher the vision it is given. This is most effective near the start of the film, and appears to be something of Dreyer’s specialty. That, more than anything, makes this film work. This sense is greatly enhanced by a tremendous soundtrack that only adds to the feeling of unease given by the setting.

What doesn’t work is the narrative. Dreyer’s story is confused and confusing. It’s not simply a question of paying attention to the details, but that things simply do not seem to work believably even in the context of the story. Careful attention doesn’t help here; the story simply does not follow any rules that can be ascertained. While that can make for an interesting experience some times, here it feels like a mistake.

Dreyer chose to have a great deal of this story told in large blocks of text in the form of the book being read by Grey and the servant. While this allowed him to cut down on the dialog (important, since he was filming in three languages at the same time), it also detracts from the story being told. The story thus doesn’t so much unfold as end up being handed to us, destroying a great deal of the mystery that could have come from this film and reducing the impact of the unsettling world Dreyer places us in.

Like many films of its era viewed today, Vampyr is a much easier film to respect than it is to like or sit down and watch. Dreyer’s ideas here are good ones, but he falls very short in the execution.

Why to watch Vampyr: It’s unsettling.
Why not to watch: It’s incomprehensible and not that good.

Church

Film: La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

We should get a couple of things straight right off the top here. I consider myself a non-theist, which is a baby step away from agnostic. I don’t go to church regularly, or at all. I don’t believe in the power of prayer, I don’t believe in a higher power that intercedes for people, and I don’t believe in the normal Christian version of the afterlife (good or bad). I’ve toyed around with a variety of religious beliefs in the past, and find that if I had to pick one, I’d probably go primarily with Buddhism despite my liberal Christian upbringing. I’m also of the opinion that religion—not faith, mind you, but religion—has been responsible for the vast majority of evil done in this world historically and today as well.

I wanted that clear from the beginning, because The Passion of Joan of Arc is the closest thing I’ve had to a religious experience in well over a year. I’m not saying this is a positive or a negative, but something that is simply true. This is not a happy church service; it’s much more akin to dealing with the Inquisition or the Salem witch trials, but it’s still a church service.

This film was based on the transcripts of the actual trial of Jeanne d’Arc. Every line that she “speaks” (or at least every line attributed to her in the intertitles) comes from the transcript of the trial. And speak she does, as do the men who are questioning her. In fact, it appears initially that there is little to this film beyond the heads of Jeanne (Maria Falconetti) and her accusers. Dreyer evidently spent a huge sum on the sets, and then basically filmed faces, letting those sets go to waste.

I wouldn’t call this film plotless, but the plot that exists is pretty obvious and the resolution is known to anyone who knows even a touch of history. The film covers only her trial for heresy during which she is accused of being misled by Satan, and of being from Satan himself. Joan (I’ll stick with the English translation of her name) states that she believes she is inspired by God instead. She is tortured and threatened with burning at the stake, and she recants her position and officially claims that she has been misled. Then she decides that this was a mistake—she really was inspired by God, and she is killed horribly.

However, this is not a history lesson. It’s a passion play, and the correlation with the traditional passion play of Christ is intentional. Joan is mocked, abused, tortured, and then killed, all the while protesting her innocence and her inspiration from God.

For being essentially a simple story simply told, there is a lot going on here. Dreyer’s focus on the faces of the characters is a huge change from the typical silent film. None of the players wears any makeup, allowing their emotions to truly show through and giving these intensely close shots a greater sense of realism. What we see is a true dichotomy. Joan stands alone, face raised to her accusers (and also to the heavens) in simple, unadorned beauty. The accusers scowl down at her, and to a man, they are ferociously ugly—balding, warty, creased old men. The blocking here gives the impression that Joan stands below them, highlighting her powerlessness as well as their temporal power over her. But don’t kid yourself; Joan’s looking up at them also allows her to continuously look up to God, and this is no doubt intentional, or at least a happy side effect of her accusers standing above her.

The film absolutely belongs to Falconetti, who gives one of the greatest performances ever filmed. Her face incredibly expressive, shifting from horror to terror to sublime ecstasy at a moment’s notice. Despite her moments of rapture, there is not a moment in which she is filmed that she is also not in anguish of some type. This film is not about her redemption or her eventual elevation to Catholic sainthood, but about her martyrdom, and it pulls very few punches. Joan is in constant torment, and it is overwhelming at times. Falconetti is plainly beautiful, which is partly her own physical beauty and very much the emotional content of her performance. It is the fact that she plays these beliefs so strongly that gives her both the presence and the beauty she displays here.

Dreyer never developed a definitive soundtrack for this film, and so it is frequently shown with no music or sound. Fortunately, there is available a version with a soundtrack called “Voices of Light,” which was developed specifically for the film. The soundtrack is glorious, particularly so if you are a fan of liturgical music. It greatly enhances the film experience.

Once again, as with many films, I can’t say that I enjoyed watching this, but I am very glad that I did. I may not be a religious person, or even in favor of most religious thought, but this is a religious experience I am happy to have undergone. Perhaps the most telling thing I can say about it is that I don’t think it would be improved with speech. It’s exactly right the way it is.

Why to watch La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc: One of the greatest filmed performances in the 100+ years of film.
Why not to watch: You’ll walk away from this drained.