HäxanIn centuries past, people attributed maladies and misbehavior to evil spirits conjured up by witches, those who made a covenant with the Devil. Häxan is a silent film made almost a century ago itself, and is a mixture of video essay and dramatization of the myths and history of witchcraft through the ages. But more than being limited to witchcraft, Häxan posits that ignorance being the real evil, the true threat which destroys the lives of those affected by it. Filmmaker Benjamin Christensen argues that the worst tragedies come not from darkness of the soul but of the mind.
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Inspired in part by "Malleus Maleficarum"--also known as "The Hammer of Witches", a treatise on witchcraft from the 15th century--Häxan portrays events that occured with eerie dramatic reenactments, with such a staggering degree of verisimilitude based on the imagery and documentation from centuries past that it is like a portal into another era. Moments of apocryphal history are given flesh, and scenes are detailed and dramatic. Häxan is broken up into seven parts, the first of which is like a preamble, depicting perceptions of the heavens and Earth held by the ancient Egyptians, including a diorama with mountains surrounding the earth, and the sky made of steel lofted from pillars on the peaks of those mountains. It recalls the perception of the Earth being the center of the universe until Copernicus proposed heliocentrism as the scientific alternative. By association, it parallels our perception of the superstitions which held sway in these dramatizations of life in the 15th century, and even the welfare of the mentally ill at the time the film was made. Subsequent episodes depict scenes of those who engaged in witchcraft, of their dreams and rituals, full of gross ingredients for love potions concocted by decrepit crones lurking in hovels, hovering over cauldrons. Other scenes concern the manifestation of Satan--played with gusto by the filmmaker himself--who appears as a muscular man, enthusiastically flicking his tongue at women, approaching them as violent ravisher or seducer in a presentation that is borderline comical--consider his emphatic implementation of the butter churn and its none-too-subtle innuendo. Later episodes portray a family of printers in a town which has recently come to host members of the Inquisition, where a young man in the house is "diagnosed" as being under the affliction of a witch's curse. This declaration prompts one of the girls to accuse an elderly woman of being a witch, who in turn accuses the rest, leaving the whole household in utter ruin. As Christensen comments on the absurdity of the pointless condemnation of so many people as a result of paranoid ignorance, he also depicts the same kind of symptoms in the modern, psychiatric equivalent of one under demonic sway: a somnambulist and kleptomaniac suffering from hysteria, whose symptoms mirror those of the so-called afflicted centuries past.
For a film made almost one hundred years ago, Häxan employs some surprisingly novel and rich special effects in its phantasmagorical display of devils and the occult. There are highly detailed costumes and make up utilized for the various creatures which have crawled out from the depths of Hell. The sorceress Karna (Ella la Cour) envisions herself taken aloft into the devil's demesne, where she is covered in gold, and said gold falls away from her in reverse to guide her through his fantasy realm. Arguably the most stunning sequence is a full coven of witches flying aloft above the rooftops of the city, their brooms beneath them as they soar like specters across the sky. Christensen is direct in his condemnation of ignorance as a substitute for humanity and its devastating effects on its victims accused of witchcraft, with frequent title cards interjecting about the various torture devices, illustrating that someone subjected to torture will likely confess to anything, being a witch or otherwise. Those who attempt to research science--such as the two amateur coroners--are branded as witches, whereas mystics like the diviner who claims the printer's boy is cursed does so by the dubious method of reading the indentations in molten lead dipped into a bucket of cold water. It is in this culture of ignorance that men like those in the Inquisition are able to thrive and act with impunity in their persecution of those accused of witchcraft. They employ trials which are often overtly cruel and impossible by design, justifications for them to administer their judgment without fear of reversal. The Inquistion's scenes of entrapping women into confessions may seem silly, until the film observes that over a period of three centuries, eight million people were burned at the stake as witches. The time in which Häxan was made is important from a cinematic as well as cultural standpoint. Cinema was still in its infancy, and yet Häxan is surprisingly vibrant for a movie of its age. Its bold visual aesthetic and compelling effects lure us into its dream-like world of a sinister past. It is a vivid horror movie, with monsters and unsettling psychological elements that creep under the skin. At times, the film is also darkly funny, such as the scene where a woman entreats Karna for a love potion, envisions his gentle advances following him drinking it, then asks Karna for something even stronger. But Häxan also is a cautionary tale about letting our ignorance and desire to reach a conclusion--formed devoid of evidence and fueled by superstition--get the better of us. It is a message which history has shown is ever relevant, especially considering the grim similarity to the Holocaust some twenty years later, a tragic witch hunt by any other name.
Recommended for: Fans of a silent movie masterpiece from the dawn of cinema, a terrifying depiction of witchcraft and the myth of it. Häxan remains astonishingly fresh and pertinent in its message, and entertains and thrills at the same time.
For a film made almost one hundred years ago, Häxan employs some surprisingly novel and rich special effects in its phantasmagorical display of devils and the occult. There are highly detailed costumes and make up utilized for the various creatures which have crawled out from the depths of Hell. The sorceress Karna (Ella la Cour) envisions herself taken aloft into the devil's demesne, where she is covered in gold, and said gold falls away from her in reverse to guide her through his fantasy realm. Arguably the most stunning sequence is a full coven of witches flying aloft above the rooftops of the city, their brooms beneath them as they soar like specters across the sky. Christensen is direct in his condemnation of ignorance as a substitute for humanity and its devastating effects on its victims accused of witchcraft, with frequent title cards interjecting about the various torture devices, illustrating that someone subjected to torture will likely confess to anything, being a witch or otherwise. Those who attempt to research science--such as the two amateur coroners--are branded as witches, whereas mystics like the diviner who claims the printer's boy is cursed does so by the dubious method of reading the indentations in molten lead dipped into a bucket of cold water. It is in this culture of ignorance that men like those in the Inquisition are able to thrive and act with impunity in their persecution of those accused of witchcraft. They employ trials which are often overtly cruel and impossible by design, justifications for them to administer their judgment without fear of reversal. The Inquistion's scenes of entrapping women into confessions may seem silly, until the film observes that over a period of three centuries, eight million people were burned at the stake as witches. The time in which Häxan was made is important from a cinematic as well as cultural standpoint. Cinema was still in its infancy, and yet Häxan is surprisingly vibrant for a movie of its age. Its bold visual aesthetic and compelling effects lure us into its dream-like world of a sinister past. It is a vivid horror movie, with monsters and unsettling psychological elements that creep under the skin. At times, the film is also darkly funny, such as the scene where a woman entreats Karna for a love potion, envisions his gentle advances following him drinking it, then asks Karna for something even stronger. But Häxan also is a cautionary tale about letting our ignorance and desire to reach a conclusion--formed devoid of evidence and fueled by superstition--get the better of us. It is a message which history has shown is ever relevant, especially considering the grim similarity to the Holocaust some twenty years later, a tragic witch hunt by any other name.
Recommended for: Fans of a silent movie masterpiece from the dawn of cinema, a terrifying depiction of witchcraft and the myth of it. Häxan remains astonishingly fresh and pertinent in its message, and entertains and thrills at the same time.