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• Technoguy said...

  Posted on Dec 28 2008 19:30 Dreyer comes as a revelation.Set in 1920s Denmark
  centred on the Borgen family farm. Within one family we have variations of belief. The stern paterfamilias,
  Morten Borgen who's own belief is of a life-affirming
  Christianity of the mainstream. His eldest son.Mikkel is
  a humanist agnostic.His wife Ingers, is a true believer
  who ,hopes she can lead her husband back to the faith.
  Then there is Anders,who has fallen in love with Anne
  a neighbours daughter from a stricter fundamentalist sect.However Johannes is seen preaching to nature
  outside in the dunes and grasses.He has become
  mentally deranged after reading Kierkegaard while
  training as a Pastor.He clearly upsets his family
  wandering as he does in and out of rooms and touched
  by his pure incantatory faith.He observes others loss of
  faith as he passes them. He tells the Pastor he is Jesus
  of Nazareth.The Pastor asks how he can prove it as he
  comes across as somewhat sceptical.Johannes is
  dismayed at the state of the state church which cannot
  believe in miracles. Peter the fundamentalist does not want Anders to marry his daughter and Morten being
  wealthier,is so put out by this he pays Peter a visit to
  have it out with him with Anders.Peter and Morten fight
  and Peter wishes upon Morten a shocking event to
  wake him up. The shock comes as his daughter-in-law-
  shown earlier to be the hub of the farmstead,ministering
  to all the family members care with a gentle,caring,
  compassionate disposition- has a premature delivery and loses her baby son.She also loses her life after a
  deterioration. The beliefs that people hold do not
  unite them.Johannes thinks it a disgrace that nobody
  wished Inger to come to life. He is led by the hand of
  his neice who literally believes he can do the
  impossible and perform a miracle in a mysterious climax.Johannes has a miraculous return to sanity
  and instead of believing he is Jesus Christ he invokes
  Jesus Christ over the dead body. I wont give away the ending:it's something the spectator has to see themselves in order to believe it.The camera is moving
  all the time between people,diagonally,up and down ,across the cabin floor and from scene to scene
  and room to room.There is a complex combination of
  rhythms, from the gliding camera right to the way the lines are read.The camera tracks and pans each character at a distance.There is a continuous,flowing,
  horizontally gliding movement.Every character has their distinctive walk and speech and facial expression.
  Only when Johannes recognizes his delusion does he
  receive spiritual power,who seems to be given the 'word'
  that can bring the dead alive.The cinematic illusion
  makes us believe the unbelievable.The quality of the
  whole mise-en-scene gives a larger than life
  transcendence to this group of slow moving and slow talking actors.Based on a play by Munk was a playwright
  and country priest killed by the Nazis due to his living
  and dying by the 'word'(ordet).

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