Cinema Can Do Farewells: Ordet

Despite his wealth and good standing in the parish, farmer Morten Borgen is unhappy. His wife is dead. His oldest son doesn’t share his father’s unshakable faith, his daughter-in-law Inger has yet to provide an heir for the farm and his youngest son is in love with the daughter of the sectarian tailor. But he’s most depressed by the fate of his second son Johannes, who became mentally ill during his theology studies. When Inger gives birth to a stillborn and dies, Johannes, who prophesized her death, wants to bring her back to life. Carl Theodor Dreyer shot ORDET, the adaptation of the 1932 play of the same name, on location at a village in West Jylland, the place which inspired author Kaj Munk. A writer, priest and symbol of Danish resistance against German occupation, Munk was murdered by the Gestapo in 1944. Dreyer shot his endlessly discussed study of faith and miraculous love in lengthy sequence shots and almost completely avoid close-ups. (hjf)