Haxan (1922)

About a year or so ago I checked out a book from the library titled something like, '1001 Movies You Should See Before You Die'. One of these movies was Haxan, a silent documentary-style examination of witchcraft by Danish director Benjamin Christensen. I remember thinking, ‘well sure, that may be one of the 1001 movies to see before you die, but how am I ever going to get a hold of a copy’. Well a short time ago, while leafing through the Criterion Collection section at a local Barns & Noble, I discovered that the film had a high quality DVD release. So, it was not long until I netflixed it. I can tell you that Haxan deserved to be on the books list, it’s unlike any film I’ve seen, and is one of the few silent films that could likely hold the attention of a decently educated modern audience.

While often described as a documentary, I think film-essay (a description Orson Wells used for his also rather unique film F for Fake) better fits. The start of the film is very much like a college lecture, with a pencil being used to point out aspects of images obviously taken from books. This is the grounding part of the film where Christensen reviews various ancient cosmologies, religious and folk beliefs that propertied the existence of devils and witches. The rest of the film is re-enactment style, consisting mostly of a dramatization of a how a witch hunt hysteria might begin in a typical mediaeval town (this is the most effective part of the film), but also other vignettes such as an outbreak of religious frenzy inspired madness at a nunnery. Christensen ties this all together with a series of psychological and medical explanations for phenomena earlier generations, and even some today (1920's, but I’m sure 2009 too) might have interpreted as ‘witch like’ or ‘demonic’, such as sleep walking or Parkinson’s disease. Clever and engaging, with a memorable and varied visual style (from text book prints to make-up jobs on some ‘devils’ that would hold up even today).Grade: A

An English language sound edition with jazz score was released by The Rank Organization in 1968, and is also available on the DVD for the completest as well as the silent film averse.