Review of Ordet (1955) by Alice S — 26 Jan 2010

A few hours ago, I finished watching Ordet and thought, "Well, I liked that, but I'm not quite sure that it deserves all the praise." Since then, I've realized that Ordet has been running through my head since it finished, and the more essays and analyses I read on the film, the more I'm appreciating it.

The story couldn't be more simple, and in fact many (even Ebert in his Great Movies entry) mention that the film can be off-puttingly slow for viewers at first. It's a feeling I agree with, but I also agree with his follow-up, that the film becomes engrossing and captivating because of its patience and its time taken in establishing the characters.

Ordet tells the story of a simple family - a father, three brothers, and the wife of one of the brothers, who is about to give birth. There is a romance in which one brother falls in love with a woman from a different sect of Christianity; there is the mentally unstable middle brother who believes that he is Jesus Christ; and there is the oldest, who finds himself without faith and at odds with the rest of his family.

Ordet grapples hard with questions of faith, implicitly criticizing those who put religion above believe and still finding wonder in simple acceptance. Despite his less than devout leanings, Dreyer has made a film more honestly about religion than almost anything I've seen, and the finale is a work of devastating impact in a simple, mundane camera shot.

Ordet takes on nothing less than faith and religion, and does so intelligently, simply, and powerfully. It's a film that only deepens in my mind the longer I think about it, and one I may be thinking about for some time.