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Vredens dag
1943 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
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Script: Carl Theodor Dreyer, Poul Knudsen, Paul La Cour, Mogens Skot-Hansen, based on a play by Hans Wiers-Jenssens
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Photo: Karl Andersson
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Music: Poul Schierbeck
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Cast: Lisbeth Movin (Anne Pedersdotter),
Preben Lerdorff Rye (Martin Pederssøn),
Thorkild Roose (Rev. Absalon Pederssøn),
Sigrid Neiiendam (Merete,
Absalon's mother),
Anna Svierkier (Herlofs Marte),
Preben Neergaard (Degn),
Albert Høeberg (The Bishop),
Olaf Ussing (Laurentius)
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Country: Denmark
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Language: Danish
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Runtime: 110 min; B&W
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Aka: Day of Anger; Day of Wrath
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Summary
In the early 17th century, Denmark is gripped by fear of witchcraft. An old woman
appeals to Anne, the young wife of a parson, to hide her, but she is caught, tortured
and burnt for alleged sorcery. When the parson’s son, Martin, returns home, he is
drawn to his alluring stepmother. Anne’s love for Martin becomes so intense that
she begins to wish that her husband were dead. When the parson dies suddenly,
his harsh mother has no qualms about denouncing Anne as a witch…
Review
Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer is renowned for his beautifully austere-looking films
about faith and human suffering. A decade after his celebrated horror film Vampyr
(1931), he made what is regarded by many as his greatest film, the work that is
most representative of Dreyer the man and Dreyer the film director. Set during the
Danish witch trials of the 17th century, Day of Wrath
shows us a community that is gripped by fear – fear of being branded a witch and
being brutally killed on the one hand, fear of being corrupted by the Devil and sent to
Hell for eternity on the other. The film was made at the time of the Nazi occupation
of Denmark during the Second World War, and it is not hard to see the parallels between
the present and past realities.
Day of Wrath forms a loose trilogy with
Dreyer’s two other great works which touch on religious themes -
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and
Ordet (1955). What the three
films have in common is a tacit belief in the strength of the human spirit to endure any
calamity, through or in spite of religion. Day
of Wrath is ostensibly the darkest, most pessimistic of the three films, but Dreyer
still manages to convey the sense that mortal suffering is transient, that human feeling
– embodied in the trinity of love, hope and faith – is eternal and will ultimately triumph.
All three films show religion in a deeply ironic, perhaps subversive, light. The
subtext is that religion (or indeed any misguided belief) is a great danger for mankind,
whereas true faith will be his salvation. The consequences of blind adherence to
religious instruction are all too apparent in Day of
Wrath: what folly will man not prosecute with a clear conscience in the name of
religion (or any other form of ideology)? By contrast, Dreyer portrays true
faith as the noblest of human characteristics: the will to transcend the here and now
and see, amid all the chaos and turmoil of our earthly lives, some great, unifying purpose
that binds us together, rather than dividing us.
Dreyer has acquired something
of a reputation for Puritanism in his cinema. This stems more from the style of
his films, which are rigorously austere, with minimalist sets, stark black and white photography,
and limited movement. Far from being puritanical, Day
of Wrath is shocking in its portrayal of human baseness – grotesque physical brutality
and unbridled female sexual desire. For such an intensely spiritual film, it’s surprising
how much Dreyer focuses on the nastier, earthier side of human experience, and in a way
that is disturbingly matter-of-fact. The horror of the torture sequences and subsequent
burning of an alleged witch are amongst the grimmest images ever seen in cinema history,
yet there is no suggestion that Dreyer is condemning what he shows us. Likewise,
the obvious attempts by the parson’s attractive young wife to seduce her stepson are portrayed
with a realism that is breathtakingly stark; so brazen is the woman that the spectator
is coerced into mentally labelling her as a witch, even though we know that she is merely
succumbing to a natural human instinct. So powerful is Dreyer’s imagery that we
cannot help but see things from his protagonists’ point of view. On more than one
occasion, we are practically driven to think in a similar way to those who made an industry
of burning old women in the 1600s. If “witch” is meant to be a metaphor for “Jew”,
that’s a truly disturbing thought. The message is clear: be very careful what you choose
to believe in.
© James Travers 2006
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