4.5 out of 5 stars

In 1925, on an isolated farm in rural Denmark, a crisis of faith is taking place in the Borgen family. Mikkel (Emil Hass Christensen), the eldest son of this agrarian household, has lost his faith in God. Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye), the middle son and a once-promising theological student, believes himself to be Jesus Christ reincarnated. Meanwhile, the youngest son Anders (Cay Kristiansen) wishes to marry outside the family religion, causing great despair in the patriarch, Morten (Henrik Malberg), who fears the religious beliefs he has fostered under his roof will die with him. As Mikkel’s wife Inger (Birgitte Federspiel) undergoes a dangerous childbirth, everyone’s faith in this pastoral home will be put to the test.

Few films deal with the subject of faith quite as beautifully as Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet; even 70 years later, it’s utterly haunting. As a life-long atheist, I find there are moments in this sublime masterpiece that simply mesmerise, where the viewer is commanded, as though by divine presence, to hold their breath. In this gorgeously shot drama, as our characters struggle against their own waning convictions, and amidst discussions of despair and sorrow, we bear witness to a cinematic style that is simultaneously modest and majestic. With a climax that stays with you for days, even audience members without faith will feel compelled by the idea that, in this cold world filled with suffering, potential still exists for the occurrence of miracles.

Based on Danish playwright and martyr Kaj Munk’s play of the same name, Ordet—which translates into English as “the word”—is a story that focuses on divine problems through an earthly lens. It’s no accident that each of our primary characters discuss their religious beliefs in relation to the worldly problems that afflict them: neighbourly squabbles, young love, and academic pursuits are all marred by spiritual insecurity and existential uncertainty. No one, no matter how far removed from civilisation, is free of these concerns. Regardless of what your beliefs may be, the manner in which Dreyer broaches the theme of faith makes for an engrossing analysis of human psychology and the presence of supernatural forces.

This theme is writ large in only the very first scene: Johannes steals away from the house and wanders through the wild, agrestic landscape, delivering a sermon from upon a windswept hill. Though he pronounces himself holy, the son of God on Earth, his family can only despair at his descent into insanity. Despite the fact that many Christian eschatologies describe the Parousia with an excited awe, when presented with a man who claims he’s the divine returned, he’s understood to be mad. Each of these followers may believe in the Second Coming—but only metaphorically speaking. No one in Vedersø actually believes the Messiah is coming back.

It’s for this reason that Johannes’ sermonising is regarded with muted dejection and veiled irritation. As the would-be prophet lights two candles, placing the candelabrum on the windowsill, Inger asks him why he’s leaving it there. Johannes stares at her, his eyes vacant as a result of his second sight: “That my light shall shine in the darkness.” After he leaves, Inger benevolently moves the candlestick, and blows the candles out. It’s a perfect visual emblem for the film’s central message: in the world today, it’s not just that there’s no faith in the divine, but there’s not even faith in faith.

This can be seen in Mikkel and Morten. The ageing father, despondent with the state of his son, is even more sorrowful that he cannot muster genuine belief that he will become well again: “If a father can’t pray with faith for his own child, miracles do not happen.” However, this lack of heartfelt conviction in the ethereal is contrasted with his peremptory assertion of dogma; his faith may be lacking, but it had still better be the right faith. This is mirrored by Peter (Ejner Federspiel), whose daughter Anders wishes to marry. However, Peter refuses based solely on the principle that Anne (Gerda Nielsen) must marry within her own religion.

It’s worth pointing out that their religious differences are not as deep as both Peter and Morten make them out to be: with Morten worshipping within the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark, and Peter being a proponent of the Church Association for the Inner Mission in Denmark, both men are members of the Lutheran church, albeit of different denominations. Perhaps total religious harmony is a chimera, but the bitterness and resentment each man has for the other’s religious sect borders on the absurd, especially when one considers how alike their theologies actually are. This idea would be parodied to no end in the hilarious Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), but Dreyer approaches this issue far more sincerely here.

That mankind has created thousands of gods to worship, yet continue to bicker ceaselessly and vehemently over their iterations of the same deity, is shown to be something of a human shortcoming, a demonstration of how pure ideas cannot survive in unadulterated form on Earth. In short, the squabbles between two religious men distract them from true divinity. Though both family patriarchs are firmly devout, and staunchly immovable in their opinion that their position is the right (and only) one, neither demonstrates actual belief in the ethereal. This begs the question: what, precisely, does their belief consist of?

It’s a question that Johannes puts to all of them: “Why among all the believers is there no one who believes?” Perhaps it’s the unending doubt all faithful must contend with when met with God’s silence, a theme that was very popular in Nordic cinema at this time. Or maybe it’s that this story takes place within a bleak period in mankind’s history: World War I, one of the most catastrophic and vicious conflicts humankind had ever created, had concluded only seven years earlier. As in The Third Man (1949), it has resulted in a dense fog of embittered nihilism. It’s perhaps for this reason that Morten solemnly intones: “Miracles don’t happen anymore.”

Dreyer’s direction manages the impressive feat of remaining loyal to the text’s theatrical roots, while simultaneously creating achingly beautiful cinema. The writing, which Dreyer adapted from the original play, is stellar. Moreover, it’s evident that Munk took inspiration from the great Henrik Ibsen: much like how the Norwegian playwright perfected theatrical realism, Munk effectively turns five interconnected (yet disparate) crises into an organically engaging chamber drama. Despite the rather slow pace, the tale is always immensely engrossing.

This immersion is aided by the deceptively simple cinematography. Dreyer, who’d been perfecting this visual style for years, finally mastered the long take in Ordet. He’s credited with saying: “I believe that long takes represent the film of the future. You must be able to make a film in six, seven, eight shots… short scenes, quick cuts in my view mark the silent film, but the smooth medium shot—with continual camera movement—belongs to the sound film.” While Dreyer’s contemporaries in Hitchcock and Ophüls had already experimented with the long take, the Danish auteur’s visual style here feels wholly singular.

In a film 125-minutes long, there are only 114 shots in the entire film. This becomes even more impressive a feat when you learn that half of these shots only occur in the first and final scenes—plenty of takes go for longer than seven minutes, and Dreyer achieves a sublime stillness in his masterpiece. Though being known for his reliance on the close-up, Dreyer only implements three close-ups throughout the entire film, and each one captures the viewer’s attention and refuses to let go.

It’ll come as no surprise that the man who has created one of the most memorable shots in all cinema (Renée Jeanne Falconetti’s pain-stricken visage remains etched in my memory) should craft some emotionally resonant imagery in what is recognised as his definitive work. The rustic beauty of the Borgen home is exceptionally atmospheric, but it’s the distraught and passionate embrace between a man and his wife that causes the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end. Or it’s the image of a child, speaking with her catatonic uncle, who wanders from room to room like a phantom.

Dreyer’s definitive film has had an undeniable influence on cinema in the last seventy years. William Friedkin attested that it was the film he took the greatest inspiration from when preparing to make The Exorcist (1973), claiming it was the only film accurately to depict possession. I have always found Ordet to be something of an unofficial companion piece to The Sacrifice (1986): in Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, a man enters into a solemn pact with God in order to save the world. In Dreyer’s film, communion with a higher power is effectively used for the same purpose: to prevent a family’s life from falling into irrevocable despair and heartache.

Even for atheists and agnostics, Ordet channels something profoundly authentic: the sheer power of belief. Not even hope, but the unshakeable faith that a miracle is going to occur, that the universe will conspire and the heavens will shift to do the impossible for you. At the climax of Ordet, we are left with the question: do you believe in something so earnestly, and so wholeheartedly, that your belief itself can render the dead alive? As we watch the Holy Spirit ripple through a corpse, a bolt of electricity shot from the ether and into the realm of man, Inger gradually comes to life upon her catafalque. As a mother is returned to her children, we remember the word that summoned her with haunting clarity: “Arise.”

DENMARK | 1955 | 125 MINUTES | 1.37:1 • 1.66:1 | BLACK & WHITE | DANISH

frame rated divider retrospective

Cast & Crew

director: Carl Theodor Dreyer.
writer: Carl Theodor Dreyer (based on the 1932 play by Kaj Munk).
starring: Henrik Malberg, Emil Hass Christensen, Birgitte Federspiel, Preben Lerdorff Rye, Cay Kristiansen, Ejner Federspiel, Gerda Nielsen, Sylvia Eckhausen, Ove Rud, Henry Skjær, Edith Trane, Ann Elisabeth Rud, Susanne Rud & Hanne Agesen.