Denmark, 1623. Herlofsen Marte (Anna Svierkier) is an old lady accused of witchcraft which are condemned to the stake. In his desperate attempt to escape the flames, go to the pastor Absalon (Thorkild Roose), who once saved the charges to another alleged witch in exchange for marrying his daughter Anne (Lisbeth Movin). On the other hand, Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye), the only son of the pastor, returns home after several years of absence, feeling attracted to the young wife of his father.
had been more than a decade since the completion of his latest film ( Vampyr , 1932) when the Danish master shot Dies irae, a stunning work that reaches its language full maturity in its steady progress towards the purification and the most absolute asceticism.
The film delves into topics such as religious fanaticism, superstition, intolerance and repression latter stressing from a social and sexual, without ignoring its obvious political interpretation, as the tape was made in the midst of the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Dreyer
always showed interest in the transcendental and metaphysical issues, away from religious dogmatism, and influence of Kierkegaard, giving primacy to personal subjectivity in the relationship between man and God. Hence the more or less latent criticism that manifests itself in many of his films to the so-called religion.
Here we have a number of compelling characters and psychology perfectly drawn that, by their inability to cope with their impulses and feelings in a rational and consistent, end up imbued with the weather cloudy and uncompromising belief that presides over the community in which they live, thus trying to justify and alleviate their sins and sorrows.
The narrative is articulated for the first time in the cinema of the author, through elaborate and deliberate sequence shots, whose use will be to the extreme in the last two films of the filmmaker.
Its sober and austere scenery refers to Hammershoi boxes, while its lighting based on light and dark, reminiscent of the work of the Baroque painters like Rembrandt and Frans Hals.
All exudes sublime artistry, deep unfathomable mystery and mysticism in this summit dreyeriano art.
Rating: masterpiece.
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