Haxan

Starring: Benjamin Christensen, Maren Pedersen, Clara Pontoppidan, Elith Pio, Oscar Stribolt, Tora Teje
Directed by: Benjamin Christensen
Rating: Not Rated
Genre: Horror
1922

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Purported to be a "documentary" about the history of witchcraft in Europe.

Review:

Tim: Haxan is a fascinating Swedish film, a horror movie that presents itself as a documentary, but blends fact with historical inaccuracies and heavy fiction. It all ends up as a spell-binding look at witchcraft through the centuries. You could watch this for "information" purposes (although you'd be led astray in places). You could watch this as a pure horror movie and be delighted by the horrifying visuals. And, I think you can watch this for the message, which is truly powerful- that hatred and fear has governed humankind for our entire history and humans often marginalize those who are different. I really appreciated the message of tolerance, understanding, and acceptance that is hit toward the end of this film. As I've touched upon in this first paragraph, there's a lot to unpack here. This silent film was the most expensive in Swedish history when first released, and to this day holds a complicated level of fascination by those who watch it.

Let's take the documentary aspect first. The film really starts in this vein. It takes a while for the movie to get going, because it feels like a dry documentary to start. We have our narrator telling us about the history of witchcraft and we see a lot of artwork depicting this, often with a pointer showing us the important parts. This isn't exactly thrilling, but there is something intriguing about rooting the film in the mundane, in a sense of approaching an occult subject from a scientific point of view. The facts presented in this film are mixed- it does address many real events throughout history, but then you get "facts" that have since been debunked. The most egregious to me is the film's claim that 8 million people died from being accused of being witches. This is a ridiculous number on its face, and has seen been revised way, way down. So, the movie is intriguing because of its approach in this area, even if the quality of the work seems quaint or misguided (I recognize I'm writing this more than 100 years later). There's real value, though, in approaching a subject like this from a documentary lens, though.

However, the movie eventually strays away from this. It gets into more of a narrative mode, telling little vignettes and then reveling in the visuals, showing these things on screen. We get some brilliant visuals here, but it does feel a bit gratuitous. This is somewhat at odds with the earlier, scientific-minded approach. The idea here seems to be, "Look at this frightening devil!" The movie still approaches its subject with caution, but we get these long, extended sequences that hint at torture, death, and then, all the supernatural aspects of its story. The visuals here are extremely well-done and in many cases, truly unsettling to watch. This is perhaps the strongest aspect of the film- it's a horror movie in that what it presents on screen must have been wild to experience in 1922. To be not that far removed from a time of rampant superstition, and to see images like this, early in cinema's history- I can't imagine how audiences reacted to this movie. I'd guess more than a few nights of sleep were disrupted by the impressive visuals this movie shows audiences. For us, more sophisticated audiences (at least, in regards to more history and context to understand the subject), it is thrilling in an entertaining way, but I have to acknowledge that if this movie intended to frighten its audiences, it likely succeeded.

The nice thing about this movie, though, is that it's not straight horror in that its primary objective is to entertain and frighten. At least, I don't believe so. The message of the overall film seems to be that accusations of witchcraft have long been a horrendous practice. The ways to "prove" someone was a witch typically involved immense torture, where the individual would admit to anything to stop the pain. Their choices were to admit being a witch and then killed, or to suffer never-ending torture. There's a real sense of revulsion and anger that this film generates. Of course, it was typically men, and typically holy men who conducted many of these sham trials and murders. Controlling women, especially those who suffered from a malady was the key driver. I do appreciate that this movie links historical accusations of witchcraft and consorting with the devil to mental maladies that many throughout history have suffered. The film does take a more accepting, logical, scientific approach in this regard.

All this to say, Haxan is a lot of things and none of them are especially expected. This is an early Swedish film that ventured into new territory and took viewers on a memorable journey. I wouldn't say I loved the film, but I was intrigued by it. I believe I watched a restoration version, so it did feel long, at 1 hour, 45 minutes or so. Still, this is a movie cinephiles would do well to track down. It's one of the more visually stunning horror films of the 1920s and although I'd only consider it "good", it's worth our time.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Nosferatu, The Seventh Seal