Review of Ordet (1955) by Tomek S — 21 Jun 2009

For those who think the so-called "New Atheists" are going a bit too far, this film is the firepower. I do not mean that it made me believe in God, or that it is a genuinely powerful defense of religion.

I mean that, like some of Bergman and Tarkovsky's work, Dreyer's masterpiece displays what may be called "the religious attitude" in its purest form. It shows just how much someone who would reduce this attitude to an evolutionary adaptation or a cultural meme is missing.

Faith distorted by dogma is foolhardy--a point Dreyer stresses almost to the point of being preachy--but the reactionary who dismisses faith is an illusion suffers from phenomenological blindness. Here is a genuine phenomenon, in which humanity acquires a distinct identity; Dreyer brings it out with the subtlety of a bull in a china shop--and brilliantly so!