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Benjamin Christensen’s film of witchcraft through the ages is an extraordinarily individual work by any standards. It begins as an illustrated lecture with demonstrations by means of engravings, mechanical models and dioramas, but before long has shifted into a film re-enactment of a medieval witch’s kitchen, with the preparation of potions and the hand of gallows’ corpse arriving in a bundle of faggots. Then it’s on to an extended witch hunting sequence in which sadistic judges torture and trick crones and young women alike into confessing participation in diabolical rituals – with these same rituals brought to life in lurid reconstructions. Throughout, Christensen himself plays the devil with lascivious, tongue-waggling relish, frightening monks, tempting wives from their beds and providing the blatantly phallic impetus to old women's dreams.

As well as providing entertainment, finding a rational explanation for the witch craze underpins Christensen’s approach, and he draws parallels between symptoms of witchery and those of 20th century ‘hysteria’. A self-reflexive commentary makes for a mix of registers in the film which a modern audience can readily appreciate

 

Graeme Hobbs on 12th July 2007
View all 262 of Graeme Hobbs's reviews

This remarkable exploration of the supernatural and religious gullibility has both shocked and entertained audiences since its premiere in 1922. Christensen’s enthusia... more >

This remarkable exploration of the supernatural and religious gullibility has both shocked and entertained audiences since its premiere in 1922. Christensen’s enthusiastic dramatisation of the activities of witches and the devil seems (in some ways) quaint and amusing today, but it’s still easy to see how they shocked the easily offended. The film has been available in a variety of forms over the years (and was something of a hit when a William Burroughs narration was added in the 1960s), but this is its most faithful presentation -- though the Burroughs version is here, if you're curious. < less

View all 513 of Barry Forshaw’s reviews