Movie #31: Released in 1955, directed by Carl Theodore Dreyer, 126 minutes. New to me!

LetterBoxd score: 5 stars

For the ordinary filmgoer, and I include myself, “Ordet” is a difficult film to enter. But once you’re inside, it is impossible to escape.

…

When the film was over, I had plans. I could not carry them out. I went to bed. Not to sleep. To feel. To puzzle about what had happened to me. I had started by viewing a film that initially bored me. It had found its way into my soul. 

Roger Ebert

I had not heard of this movie, and went in pretty blind, except I knew it was by the person who made Joan of Arc, and that it was about faith. It is slow, but you are compelled to watch. Johannes, the brother who believes he is Jesus resurrected, moves like an eerie blank-faced puppet, speaking as if something else is using his vocal cords to communicate. Granpapa has gravity.

About halfway through the movie, I started thinking “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this, at least on this list.” It’s the kind of portentous movie that could so easily drift into being a parody of itself. Slow, but it feels very real.

And then Ingmar has her complicated birth.

It’s all so unbearable. The doctor’s operation had me waving my arms around, clutching my head, taking deep breaths. And it’s all unseen – merely suggested! Borgen’s exhausted patience with his crazed son, head in his hand, as Johannes intones that he sees an angel of death coming for Ingmar. Mikkel’s bitter grief.

And then that ending.

Unbeliever that I am, I should be rolling my eyes. Magic makes it all better. But I don’t. Somehow Dreyer has done it, made me see what it is like to have faith, to believe, even as I don’t. I learned later he is not necessarily devout himself. Incredible. Perhaps that’s how he was able to communicate faith to me.

Why would someone think it’s one of the ten greatest movies ever made?

This is at Ozu’s level, but on a completely different dimension of human experience.

Next: The Night of the Hunter