Review of Häxan (1922) by Rich S — 28 Oct 2011

A warm ember of hallowed night. Christensen's masterpiece gets the top rating for its audacity at the time it was made, and the novel (and revolutionary) way it combines factual history and grotesque fantasy.

Ostensibly a documentary, with many fanciful re-enactments, the filmmaker attempts to show both the irrationally dark fears that a society built around a patriarchal religion had for its misunderstood feminine magnetism - 'witches' - as well as demonstrating in clear, symbolic detail the vividness and voluptuousness of these anxieties.

(Stress 'symbolic' - this is no "Orgy of the Dead") Christensen is clever enough to then tie this fear of female sexuality in with 'modern' Freudian psychoanalysis. For a film ambitious enough to even attempt this at such a time, even in Denmark, is astonishing.

Christensen revels in the demonic imagery with heretical glee, only to pull the rug out from the entire charade by exposing the the psychological phantoms that the Church had been fighting all along. Add to this a forum of the very real horrors of the Inquisition, using historical engravings and demonstrations of the tools of torture, and it becomes very clear what devastating effects this medium of cinema could possess, and how dangerous it would be to the dogmas of past centuries.

No doubt, this is precisely why this film remains obscure, though some will claim its 'hysterical' portrayal keeps it from being too serious. The Criterian edition also includes the better known edit, released in the 1960s with a free jazz score and excellent narration by William S.

Burroughs (a bit of a witch himself). Highly recommended, both for its novelty as cinema and as a portent to the sexual and theological revolutions to come.