Ordet (‘The Word’)

Dir: Carl Theodor Dreyer: Denmark 1955 (126 mins)

For many this adaptation of Kaj Munk’s play about tensions within a Jutland farming family is the very greatest of all Dreyer’s masterpieces as suspenseful as it is emotionally devastating. Dreyer’s penultimate film is at once a wise, even witty exploration of pride, prejudice and pretensions to devout faith, and a heartrending hymn to the power of earthly passion and love. In contrast to the performance’s intimate naturalism, the exquisite lighting, camera movements, sets and sounds all add to the sense of a super-reality, strangely familiar yet informed by mysterious forces of dark almost primal emotion. This great classic is considered to be a towering achievement.

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