Ordet

1955 Carl Dreyer movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Old pious Morten had a farm. E-I-E-I-O. And on this farm, he had three sons. E-I-E-I-O. Agnostic Mikkel lives on the farm with his pregnant wife Inger and two daughters. Johannes is nuts, frequently wandering to the fields and announcing that he is the Messiah. And youngest son Anders wants to marry Anne, the daughter of a tailor who Morten doesn't like very much because of differences in their religious faiths. So they cluck cluck there, and they cluck cluck here. Here a cluck cluck. There a cluck cluck. Everywhere a cluck cluck.

Ordet (The Word) is a sneakily dense, slow-moving but intense look at religion, specifically the issue of faith. I didn't completely understand it. I really wish the differences between Peter the tailor and Morten's religious ideas were made a little clearer. Morten was a happy Christian while Peter was more of a depressed worshipper, but what does that mean exactly? This builds so slowly that I initially thought I was bored out of my mind. The camera moves slowly, the characters talk and move slowly, and the backgrounds are static and too gray even for a black and white film. But gradually, I was hypnotized by the thing, drawn into the characters' lives, so that when the pair of climaxes came, they were deep and meaningful whereas they might seem trite and meaningless if I just told you what they were. There's not a lot of camera movement, but when it happens, the movements seem so important. Really, there's something seemingly important about the lack of movements too, I guess. There's a focus on the characters, no setting distractions except for maybe the occasional lamp or picture, and almost nothing that can be described as action. It's that minimal quality that give the relationships and conversations the characters have this quiet intensity. The ending is powerful, but, at least for me, thematically perplexing. I was pretty sure I knew what the film was trying to say (again, re: faith), but the more I thought about it, the more I was confused about why the movie ended like it did. That ending was very well handled, however, with the same dreamy rhythm of the rest of the film, sans music, extraneous movements, or wasted emoting. I look forward to watching this again in another format (I had a vhs copy, so a Criterion release of this would be nice upgrade) to uncover some of the mysteries and symbols (a bird cage? candles and lamps? Johannes stick? the relationship of Anders and Anne as a marriage of religious ideas?) tucked inside it.

Recommended by Cory. And if you're reading this, R.D., I'd be interesting in hearing what you think about this one.