Haxan (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

This is an attempt to explain occult practices. Dating from the 1920s, this film explores the underside of what is now called New Age. It was years before the hysterical "Satanic panic." By the way, fans of the Swedish Satanic band Ghost will recognize some scenes from the videos that Ghost has posted on You Tube.

This is not what I expected at all, from reading the back of the Criterion dvd you hear about Grave Robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic sabbath, so I'm thinking a horror movie. What i got was writer director Benjamin Christensen exposing witchcraft for what it really was, mental disorders. He does this first with some dark comedy which reminded me of Jeff Foxworthy's whole bit about you might be a redneck if, however here it's you might be a witch if. It's infuriating almost, to see how ignorance and fear of anything and anyone different were proclaimed witches and tortured and murdered. If you denied being a witch then you were tortured until you basically just wanted to die, so you would say anything they wanted. Prisoners were often tricked into saying they were a witch in exchange for freedom. I got a kick out of the woman who gets tortured till she's had enough and says I'll tell you everything and starts naming off everybody that's done her wrong and how there witches as well, smart idea. In my opinion everyone that cuts me off in traffic are witches. At the end he shows how modern day (being the 20's) it is hysteria and mental disorders, which we have specific names for every disorder he shows, and not the work of witches.There are images of horror but it's more describing the peoples fear and nothing that actually happened.I was surprised on the internet movie database that the only genre this falls into is horror. It's a a whole lot deeper than that i believe and plays true today and every decade since.The real horror and probably the scariest of all is the judgmental ignorance and fear by man of anything different, and in this film if there was something that couldn't be understood, well then blame it on someone that looks and acts different and call them a Witch.History repeats itself unfortunately you could use this same film today and use witches and then at the end of the movie you could replace mental disorders with Hitler and the Jews. You could use witches and then supplement mental disorders with slavery, racism and segregation. Again use witches and replace mental disorders with "the evil doers" our president refers too. Who will be the "witches" of the next generation? That is the horror.This is a great and important film. **DVD Features** from back coverHaxan (1922) New digital, speed-corrected transfer of the Swedish Film Institutes's tinted restoration-Music from the original danish premiere, arranged by film music specialist Gillian Anderson and performed by the Czech film orchestra, presented in Dolby Digital 5.0-Commentary by Danish silent film scholar Casper Tybjerg-Benjamin Christensen's introduction to the 1941 re-release-A short selection of outtakes-Bibliotheque Diabolique a photographic exploration of Christensen's historical sources-Still gallery-New English translation of intertitlesWitchcraft through the ages (1968) The 76 minute version of Haxan, narrated by William S. Burroughs, with a soundtrack featuring jean luc ponty

Häxan is an excellent 1922 silent film that depicted the practice of religion and witchcraft during the Middle Ages. In this movie, superstitious characters created unrest in what were once peaceful, European dwellings. Whenever plagues spread throughout communities or lustful temptations occurred within the clergy of a synagogue, a scapegoat would have to shoulder the blame for society's ills. The alleged perpetrator could be identified and found guilty on the basis of physical appearance. If the individual were deformed, then he/she could be deemed as the devil in the flesh; if, on the other hand, the defendant was an attractive woman whose beauty was captivating, then chances were, she would be branded a witch who enticed the sexual imaginings of many a young man.With an effective cast who could act out the paranoid mindset that was swelling and spreading, Häxan had and still has the ability to lead viewers into witnessing some darker realms of humanity that were under the guise of spirituality. The emotion of fear, in conjunction with superstitions regarding a village's misfortunes, would prevail throughout this movie. As it would often fall in line with the edicts of those in power, namely the clerics, and as it would secure the standings of those already at the top, fear, as it would be experienced among laypersons and lower-ranking pastorates, overruled logic.It can be argued that Häxan was a creative exposition to the adage that wrong people in power, if given the opportunity, will try to control the minds of others by keeping them poor, blind, scared and stupid. Häxan is based on a premise that a collective mindset built upon rumor, superstition and hate is highly dangerous.Though this movie is nearly ninety years old, Häxan does have its fascinating, visual effects that were perhaps way ahead of their time. Portions of the movie depicted those deemed as the outsiders, that is to say, the pagans or devil worshippers who performed rituals that consisted of costumes, masks, and fire altars with some similarities to the pagan festivities in the 1973 movie, The Wicker Man. And it is within these ceremonial scenes that the stunning, technical aspects of the film arise.The viewer is transported right away into a different dimension, where it is not clear if it is supposed to be an outer, spiritual world that exists or the enactment of what was in the mind's eye of the superstitious. Nonetheless, the presence of ghostlike figures and demons helped to create as stunning a heaven-or-hell dilemma as what one could possibly hope for from this film. The trick photography for enhancing the awesome spectral appearances leaves little doubt that ten years later, Carl Theodor Dreyer's use of ectoplasmic imagery in his 1932 film, Vampyr, was inspired by the viewing of Häxan.All in all, this classic is, to say the least, a quintessential two-for-one. It is a perfect docudrama in the history of human behavior, and it is the perfect expositor of the genius of Benjamin Christensen, the movie's writer and director.

Wie es ein Zwischentitel erklärt, berichtet "Hexen" von der Kulturgeschichte der Hexerei. Am Ende folgt ein Blick auf das Nachleben des Themas in der Gegenwart, wobei der Glaube an Dämonen und Hexerei mit der sogenannten Hysterie verglichen wird. Zwischendurch läßt "Hexen" auch wissenschaftliche Ansätze erkennen: Quellen werden zitiert, Dokumente gezeigt Diagramme und Instrumente untersucht. "Hexen" stellte zu seiner Zeit einen der aufwändigsten und teuersten Filme Skandinaviens dar. Der Film führt eindrucksvoll vor, wie bewegte Bilder die Motive vergangener Zeiten aktualisieren, dabei kombiniert er in Vorwegnahme surrealistischer Strategien wissenschaftliche Fakten mit halluzinatorischen Bildwelten voller Sexualität und Gewalt (Verbotene Träume von Sex und Reichtum). Die ausufernde Darstellung eines Hexensabbat, eine orgiastische Choreographie, in der der Regisseur persönlich mit teuflischem Vergnügen den Satan verkörpert, ist der Höhepunkt von "Hexen", eine Tour de Force in Sachen Spezialeffekte, Maske und Bildaufbau, die viele zeitgenössische Filme an Exzessivität und sexueller Symbolik übertrifft. Ein Großteil der Faszination, die von "Hexen" ausgeht, beruht auf der Fülle unappetitlicher Details: Kadaver, Insekten und Reptilien sind allgegenwärtig, ebenso Schmutz, ausgespucktes und ungekautes Essen, zerissene Kleider, geborstene Äste, die ekelhafte Zunge des Satans-eine allgemeine Unordnung, die dem Film eine derbe Optik verleiht. Er legt ohnehin nahe: Es sind die über lange Jahre sedimentierten Bilder, die in einem kulturellen Gedächtnis erst den Glauben an eine irrationale Weiblichkeit, an die Existenz von Hexen entstehen ließen.Benjamin Christensens "Hexen" (im Original "Häxan") zählt zu den unterhaltsamsten und veblüffendsten Horrorfilmen 1920er Jahre. Aufgrund der Mischung läßt er sich nur schwer einordnen; manche Leute würden den Streifen noch nicht einmal als Horrorfilm bezeichnen. Wenn man sich die Zeit vor Augen hält, in der "Hexen" entstand, ist der Film ein bemerkenswertes Stück Filmgeschichte. Beim Kinostart 1922 löste er in Dänemark Entrüstung aus und wurde nach seiner Premiere verboten. "Hexen" war nur wenig Aufmerksamkeit vergönnt. Danach verließ Christensen Dänemark, arbeitete kurz für Erich Pommer, übernahm eine Rolle in einemCarl Theodor Dreyer Film und drehte u.a. einen Film mit Lon Chaney in der Hauptrolle.Die Criterion Collection enthält zusätzlich die !968-Fassung mit William Burroughs als Sprecher, die Musik dieser Version stammt von Jean Ponty.

Outstanding film...the commentary was very interesting and intriguing ! Quality was great, and the music was intense too. B&W never looked so good. The costumes and sets were ahead of the times.