Lambie Reviews Häxan

Year: 1922
Accolades: One of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die

Normally, when a silent film throws up a title card every 30 seconds you should immediately suspect that it's not doing its job properly. A silent films should be able to portray dialogue and emotion mainly from visuals. But every so often, there comes along a film that bucks the trend. Häxan is a film that needs all those title cards, and uses the wordy descriptions to wonderful effect.

Why? Because it's not actually what you could call a conventional film. Benjamin Christensen's creation manages to defy any genre you care to put it in. It's perhaps closest to a documentary about witchcraft in ancient, medieval, and modern times, but there's a good smattering of genuinely disturbing horror and some (wildly outdated) analysis thrown in for good measure.

The film is presented in seven chapters. These chapters cover the origins of witchcraft, how witchcraft was allegedly used, how people reacted to witches and witchcraft, and what modern society (and by modern we are talking 1920's here) makes of the same traits today. And it's all very interesting stuff. It works because rather than just present us with what these people believed, Christensen manages to also convince us that at the time, these may have been reasonable beliefs based one what society and science knew of the world and the workings of the brain at the time (i.e. not much). The opening chapter, with its description of how common belief in the middle ages was that the earth was at the centre surrounded by planets stuck on spheres, is presented using only some stills (and at the end a bit of movement), but it's done in a way that it somehow invokes a sort of delight in that let's us enjoy the moment, rather than laugh at how stupid we know that to be today.

Other parts of the film, however, would not be out of place in any other horror film. The company behind The Blair Witch Project took their name from this film, and with good reason. The costumes and makeup used to depict Satan, for example, are actually quite unnerving. Put on modern film it would be laughable but combined with the low grain film and the colour tinting, the effect is unforgettable.

Other parts of the film are almost like a moving textbook of ancient scientific belief of medieval life. Christensen films still pictures, and uses a pencil to point out the area of the picture he is discussing. More often, he will use actors and re-enactments to describe the current topic, such as the inquisitions or, yes, medieval torture devices used to extract confessions from witches. One of his young actresses even insisted on trying out the thumbscrews, and the result is captured on film.

It's this blend of re-enactment with real life drama that gives the film it's real power. One of the other, older actresses told Christensen that she believed she had seen the devil. For real. He was so intrigued by the admission that he included a discussion of it in the film.

The film really only has two pitfalls, in that the soundtrack on whatever version is hosted on the Internet Archive is a little jarring at times, and that the wildly outdated analysis in the final chapter is so obviously old fashioned it detracts a little from the overall message of the film. Overall, though, the points he raises are legitimate ones, and it's not hard to take his analysis and apply a more modern day skew on it.