Ordet (1955)

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. Starring Henrik Malberg, Emil Hass Christensen, Birgitte Federspiel, Ejner Federspiel, Preben Lerdorff Rye, Cay Kristiansen, Ove Rud, Henry Skjær, Gerda Nielsen, Ann Elisabeth Rud, Sylvia Eckhausen.

Powerful, gradually absorbing drama depicting two devout families in rural Denmark, one of the stern and fundamentalist Christian tradition and the other of a more loving and joyful attitude toward God, and the schism between both patriarchs when their youngest children wish to marry each other. Strange and eloquently observed in long takes (the slow, hypnotic camera pans will be recalled by the later work of Andrei Tarkovsky), sacrificing storytelling simplicity for the gambit of a “mule-kicked” madman (Rye)—a Kierkegaard-acolyte who believes himself to be a prophet, if not the messiah Himself—but his monotone soliloquies don’t distract attention from the feud between the family leaders, or the agony of childbirth (not witnessed, but fiercely felt), nor do they undermine the film’s spiritual significance with absurd egotism. The ending should be a grievous miscalculation among viewers who recognize faith as a personal struggle/comfort instead of a supernatural reality, but Dreyer’s rejection of melodrama makes it credible, as shocking as it is moving. Based on a 1932 play by Kaj Munk. English title translation: The Word.

93/100