sveinpa Reviews

Vampyr (1932)

Into uncertainty

[10/10 · 25 February 2012]

"Imagine that we are sitting in a room - a pretty ordinary room without anything special about it. Suddenly we are informed that behind the door to the next room stands a corpse: At the same moment the room we are sitting in is transformed - the air, the atmosphere, the objects mood and light has become completely different. That is the effect I want to bring forth in my film".

It is Dreyer' s accomplice Ebbe Neergaard that quotes Carl Th. Dreyer in a chronicle in the Danish paper Politiken on 6th of May 1932, the day of Vampyr' s premiere in Berlin. The chronicle tells at great length about how this film differs from other horror films, especially how its artistic form is produced with unusual means. The actors does not act, Neergaard writes. Indeed most of them are not actors at all, but ordinary people hand picked because of the way they look. Dreyer does not want them to "act" because they should remain as they are and let the camera and the editor do the main work. This is seen by Neergaard as a sort of realism that is to be made into the fantastic by Dreyer. The actors are consequently not given make up, and they are filmed in real surroundings, a quiet village outside Paris, not in a studio, also to give the film its basis of realism, even when the effect is to be the uncanny one as Dreyer indicates. Things are the same but different.

I think these remarks are still valid concerning the unique film that Dreyer made together with the expert cinematographer Rudolph Maté, from his previous film La passion de Jeanne d 'Arc, and the art director Hermann Warm, also from Jeanne, known for his groundbreaking expressionistic work on Caligari as well as for his co-operation with both Fritz Lang and Murnau (although not on Nosferatu...). Together they set out to create a work that both stands in the tradition of German expressionism, but also one that is considerably French in its slightly surrealistic tone. This means that Vampyr has more in common with Jean Epstein' s hallucinatory nightmare La chute de la maison Usher (1928) than with Murnau' s Nosferatu, as its plot is more the basis for conjuring up the dream like world of the unconscious than for telling a horrific story. This way, both Epstein and Dreyer managed to make the usual ingredients, a gloomy château, some flickering candles, a doomed woman or two, skulls, coffins, ancient books with sinister tales etc., create films that look like no others, then or now. Epstein may be the more wild and experimental, with all his use of fast moving camera and double or triple exposures, but Dreyer, true to his type, is the more quiet and spiritual. Of the two films, I find Vampyr to be the more moving. I also find it to be, along with Gertrud, Dreyer' s perhaps most enduring work; I have seen it a great many times, both on screen and at home, and yet I want to see it again right now.

Some of the traits that never fails to interest and move me are the careful and subtle ways, both visually and aurally, Vampyr presents the strange interiors of first the desolate country hotel visited by the haunted Grey, then the almost surrealistic, desolated factory, and at last the miserable château where we witness the outcome of the ancient battle of the blood. With Gray we view these unknown and otherworldly rooms and their shadows wide eyed and with disbelief. But still the many carefully constructed camera movements and oddly cut frames makes it all believable, at least as much as a dream is believable, because we are truly inside the experience of seeing it. The long tracking shots make sure that we see and contemplate, every single, telling detail in the rooms, and yet the sudden shifts in lightning underlines the singularity of the dream experience; everything we view is as much a part of our imagination as of the world around us. In Vampyr every creepy movement and weird angle matter, and when Gray slowly is introduced to the sinister goings on among the country folk, the film makes sure that we never can trust what we see, things may look real yet remain unfathomable.

The most respectable characters are of course the dangerous ones; as the at first vague story begins to unfold there is a feeling of uncertain things becoming more certain, only to drift away again into uncertainty. The two doomed looking sisters, for example, seems to inherit two entirely different worlds; the bitten (yes) Leone on the verge of her death bed, and the fragile and slender Gisèle, looking much like a female Nosferatu herself, on the verge of insanity due to her sister's misfortune. Always when I see Vampyr these two seems to me as some femme fatales sure to drag Gray into their miserable worlds. Much more than the ancient vampire herself and her doctor helper, I find the sisters genuinely scary as well as magnetic in their screen presence. But as the plot unfolds and they at last are saved, I find that I loose sight of them. What was unfolded, a sense of the uncanny, is folded up again. Does this mean that I prefer them to be doomed? This is a film that always affects me in such a way that I end up in an uncertain state in the way only the best cinema can manage.

As the room mentioned by Dreyer is transformed, the film Vampyr, in its splendid Criterion version, transforms the room, perhaps more than a public cinema screening. I sometimes, when the walls are closing in, long for such transformations, thus I only put Vampyr on when I need it. And dear do I need it now.

Die Gezeichneten (1922)

"Why not try to incite a pogrom?"

[6/10 · 22 February 2012]

This may not be a great film but it is certainly interesting, both as a work of Dreyer and as a history piece. As the honorable Graf Ferdinand has explained the plot in his usual excellent manner, I will here look into some thematic material and (film)historical background.

Being the first of three German productions by Dreyer, Die Gezeichneten was an important step towards international acceptance for him. The Germans needed a big and exotic theme suitable for the Anglo-American market, and Dreyer suggested the Danish novel Elsker hverandre about Russian pogroms. Also, developing his own theme of love in times of revolution, which he had started with the Finnish episode of Blade af Satans bog, Dreyer needed the resources of a big studio and the extra help of Russian expatriates, and particularly the Jews among them, in Germany to add local colour to the story set in Russia during the 1905 upheavals. He could also use members of Moscow Art Theatre schooled in the art by Stanislavsky himself.

In the notes accompanying the DVD/blue-ray from the Danish Film Institute, Caspar Tyberg tells that the sets are based on housings in the Jewish community of Lublin, Poland, to where Dreyer and his set designer traveled for research. The results are striking, as what makes this film improve on Dreyer's previous efforts are exactly its sense of authentic characters, and perhaps even more so among the plentiful extras than among the principal characters, who after all also includes theatre actors from Germany, Denmark and Norway. As this film is literally crowded with people, it may be Dreyer's achievement in directing and editing the riotous crowd scenes in the latter half of the film that makes for the most exiting viewing. He had surely learned from the Finnish episode mentioned above how to whip up a storm by cross cutting in the Griffith way between closely framed studies of faces in terror and the distanced shots of the masses which threatens to destroy them. There is a feeling here of how a riot gets out of hand that, if not exactly with the same masterful expertise as later provided by Eisenstein and Pudovkin, provides a truly cinematic way of inciting terror.

A big advancement also over the Finnish episode, is how Dreyer in Die Gezeichneten manages not to take any sides on behalf of a group: Even when the followers of the Czar are murdering the Jews it is clear that they are ordinary, simpleminded people led astray by a single political provocateur. The three parties involved, Jews, revolutionaries and czarists, all provide a mixed crowd of the good, the bad and the indifferent. Not forgetting the spies which mingle among the three. If there is any fault among these people, it is that they can all be led astray. This gives the film, for its time, a rare realistic feeling, even if the love interests, the fleeing Hanna and her revolutionary lover Sascha, are certainly catered for in the usually romantic, and at times overacted, manner.

Since the book was published well before the 1917 revolution and the film of course after, we also get a complex issue concerning how the revolutionaries are portrayed. As they are young and idealistic, they immediately cause our positive interest (I assume). But we know what happened later. And, what is worse, so does the film: An intertitle actually, and critically, refers to "the present situation", which must mean 1922. The reds we see, however, act with enthusiasm, naive perhaps ("Let me throw the first bomb!") but all in all in a realistic, understandable manner considering the way the czarist police acts: After all it is the police that gives the film its only real villain in the spy and provocateur Rylowitsch; the mastermind and executor of the pogrom. The police also provides the necessary suspense in making the romance prove fateful: The troubled heroine and her revolutionary lover are betrayed and imprisoned. The reds on the other hand, are successful: They even manage to make the regime allow freedom for all political prisoners, even if this means a forced return of our heroine to her community.

Alas these contrasting elements also provide the greatest obstacle for the first time viewer, as there is quite a lot to follow at the same time. There is at first also an abundance of long intertitles almost swamping the (often very) short scenes completely, perhaps due to missing picture material. The result is confusing, and not exactly great cinema. But the first half, once it gets going, still has a lot of nice touches as it takes its time to show the Russian Jews in their homes crowded with gossiping and designing relatives, especially when there is marriage in the air. Dreyer is certainly learning here how to use facial close ups to illustrate character more than to set the plot going; he dwells on several persons that are not strictly necessary for the story. They do instead give us a feeling of how claustrophobic a Jewish community, or any community for that matter, can feel for young lovers who will not follow the law of the elders. Indeed the first half almost states the case that it is the secularized brother of the heroine that has made the right move, as he has escaped from the community to become a lawyer in the czarist city of St. Petersburg. However, and the film shows this in a convincing manner, even a secularized Jew remains a Jew when a pogrom is on the way. So at the end we are left with the sort of homegrown moral that may be depressing to some: Follow the elders anyway, for you cannot escape your destiny. You are branded (gezeichnet). Having this theme played out by people who just about got away from the 1917 revolution alive, gives Die Gezeichneten an extra touch that is, well, touching.

Suce-moi vampire (1976)

Fangs that would suck

[4/10 · 19 February 2012]

Suce moi vampire mas made by Jean Rollin to pay for the losses that Levres de sang suffered at the box office, using footage from that film as well as hardcore scenes with some of the same actors, shot in some of the same places. Rollin uses the character Frederick to make up the alternative story: Frederic takes out an old picture book from his book shelf, and leafing through it tells the story (by voice over) of how vampirism is combined with sexual perversions.

There are several interesting things to notice for fans of Levres: The two films interact with one another, both auditory and visually, right from the start. While we see Frederick in the library we hear the cracking thunder from Levres, then suddenly, as he tells us that the story concerns a (familiar) female photographer, there is a shift of scene to a sex scene between an (unfamiliar) Asian woman and a middle aged man, accompanied by a rousing piano and drum score and added loud sighs. In the corner, however, we recognize the stereo equipment from the photographer Claudine' s studio in Levres, and, as shown by edited in scenes from Levres showing her taking pictures of the action, indeed it is her studio. But instead of her taking pictures of the (familiar) female nude model in high black boots, as in Levres, she now (by the magic of editing) seems to be shooting the new couple. She gets a call, and we understand that it is from Frederic who wants to talk with her about the mysterious castle ruins in her poster. She asks him to drop by. The scene eventually shifts to the cocktail party that opened Levres, and where Frederic first noticed how he seemed to remember the ruins on her poster from his childhood.

These scenes now act as a flash back in Suce moi. Added to these we are shown Frederic (as he is now, not the boy as in the first scenes in Levres) walking among the ruins, meeting the semi nude vampire quartet of females, thus anticipating the end of Levres. This is the sort of interacting that makes Suce moi interesting, and not only to fans of Rollin: The way of creating a cinema of forking paths should be familiar to any art house audience that knows well the intertextual tricks of Godard, Robbe-Grillet and Duras. The difference is, of course, that Rollin did not in any way make Suce moi for the sake of cinematic experimenting.

In addition to some rather pointless sex scenes with little relation to Levres, there are three more scenes which further this sort of interacting between the two films.

First we see the (familiar) scene where Claudine, awaiting Frederic, is shooting her model, then suddenly, in comes the new nude man and immediately starts to act on the model. And, as they get it on, we hear Claudine hilariously direct the scene while she is clicking away with her camera: "Great! Continue! More of that!", making (I guess...) the whole scene sound much like what actually goes on when shooting sex. The soundtrack now also shifts from the earlier rousing piano to the more modern atonal piano from Levres. The man even looks away in the photographer 's direction several times, as he might wonder: "Is this how you want it?" The whole scene thus works as a comment on the earlier, more standard porn scene mentioned above, as well as showing us quite another version of what is happening as Frederic rings the door bell. The man is gone and we see the same conversation between Frederic and Claudine as in Levres, the difference now is what happens next; as Claudine gets undressed she swiftly seduces Frederic as the piano shifts to a lush nigh club tune before letting the grunts and sighs dominate the soundtrack.

Secondly we see, as in Levres, Frederic releasing the four female vampires from their cemetery confinement. Now, however, after one of them has finished some rather strange masturbating on the coffin lid, the blonde, straying away from the others, suddenly enters through an apartment window and seduces an unsuspecting man in his bed while the thunder is roaring above. As she bites his neck we clearly sees her vampire fangs. This scene would actually work well in Levres as well.

The third interacting scene happens when we witness an orgy involving Claudine, and then out of the blue comes the fully dressed Frederic crashing into the proceedings and snatching away Claudine, trying to tell her of the four vampires he has set loose. Claudine promptly kicks him out, and then we get the (familiar) street scene where he is taken by force by the asylum crew. The difference from Levres, of course, is that now he is coming from an orgy, whereas in Levres he is coming from his ma. In both scenes he has been telling the same tale but to different dames. And here, just to add another new touch, the crew calls the doctor while he is making love, his lover runs out, and it is her that we (as in Levres) see is promptly bitten to death by the lurking vampires.

In the end we are back to the narrating Frederic in his study again. Only now we see what' s been going on while he has been telling the story, the Asian has been busy with her mouth between his legs, and, dear oh dear, has she got some fangs that should make him worry... Which completes Suce moi in a way that makes some sense, I guess, as well as adding a whole lot of nonsense to Levres. Levres de sang, however, stands out on its own as a classic. Suce moi vampire badly needs Levres to make sense.

The Bride of Glomdal (1926)

How not to cross a river

[5/10 · 9 February 2012]

Glomdalsbruden exists today in a splendid print drawn directly from the nitrate negative and is available both on DVD and blue-ray. It is however, a very short version (1250 meters) of what was originally a long movie (2525 meters). It is likely that the film was cut down immediately after release in 1926 but the facts are uncertain. The story as we see it now is at least no fragment; it is a tight, fast moving story complete in itself.

Based on two once very popular peasant stories by Jakob Breda Bull, it is a common enough tale of two troubled lovers, Berit and (poor) Tore, and an even more troubled, desperately jealous third party, (rich) Gjermund. Gjermund is promised to marry Berit by her father but Berit will not have it. She rides away, falls from her horse, gets hurt and spends some time recovering at Tore's farm, and then at the parson's place. When they finally are allowed to get married, Gjermund is ready to make trouble: He sets their boats adrift, making it impossible for the lovers to cross the river to get to the church. Gjermund tries to cross the river on a horse but both horse and man are taken by the current. After many a dramatic river scene, they make it ashore. The wedding can thus take place. The End.

The film was just a swift summer's work for Dreyer, who originally was called to Norway to film Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's more complicated drama En fallit. But time proved to short for that, so Dreyer himself suggested the simple Bull stories. He had no script, and directed the entire film almost straight from the books, improvising the scenes from day to day, and making the most of the local country locations and the rustic interiors of the old peasant lodgings. This may not sound very promising but Dreyer was by then experienced and professional enough to complete a decent film considering the circumstances. There is plenty of folklore dancing, fighting, and some fine romantic scenes among the northern summer country, all edited together with Dreyer's by then usual attention to detail, especially as far as the peasants faces and gestures are involved. But perhaps the lack of time made it impossible to make more perfect character studies. The actors, taken from the National Theatre in Oslo, are no more than adequate; they mostly look the part in their rustic robes but it is the cinematography, by the local Einar Olsen, the editing, by Dreyer, and the scenery which makes the film.

The river Glomma deserves special mention as it is almost a character in itself; the climax where Dreyer films the almost drowning Tore and his poor horse in the swift rapids are quite terrifying. The cross cutting between the worried, and at one point fainting, Berit and the ones in the river is as good as can be expected from a man who has learned much from Griffith in how to make an art of poor folk fighting strong currents (Way Down East).

But Glomdalsbruden as a whole in the current version is not all it could have been. The troubled Gjermund, for instance, is not given much screen time in the film as it is today. Even when lurking after the lovers with an axe, he seems curiously out of place and not really frightening. Indeed he remains a rather vague person where a more sinister and evil character could have raised the drama to a little more frantic effect. As it is, the film remains a trifle in the Dreyer canon but a trifle that at least looks great courtesy of the pristine print.

Master of the House (1925)

Dreyer the master

[9/10 · 8 February 2012]

Du skal ære din hustru was restored last year by Palladium, the original company that released it in 1925. It was also released on DVD along with the likewise newly restored Vredens Dag, Ordet and Gertrud. These are actually the first ever releases on DVD by the Danes themselves of their most important films. It took some time but the result is splendid, at least as far as Du skal ære din hustru is concerned. The current version is free from scratches and dirt and comes with the original Danish intertitles. It runs for 107 minutes.

Having seen the other early Dreyer films (before Jeanne) both long ago on the screen and on DVD relatively recent, I must say that this remains for me without doubt the most interesting one. Indeed it is great! This is because its success is purely cinematographic: Although based on the popular 1919 play "The tyrant's fall", it strikes me how little it resembles a stage performance; how well the natural acting (not in any way overacted) is integrated in the two or three small rooms of the troubled family's apartment, not least how excellently the scenes are constructed, and especially the lightning, which is never too bright, yet bringing out every detail in the house. It is a joy to see this environment come alive; a cross between a petit bourgeois and an upper working class world, as well as to study the many objects appearing from another time: The carefully hung pictures on the walls, the always-burning oven (it is winter) with its place for the kettle, and all the small oddities from a hundred years ago (well, almost). Indeed Dreyer himself paid utmost importance to it; he constructed everything from scratch to look exactly like a Christianshavn apartment, and he made sure that the camera always was positioned around the characters like it was another ghostly member of the family. We are drawn into the surroundings in a way that a theatre stage never could manage, and the actors are shown in their best possible manner, where only a small wink or a troubled gaze is enough to indicate what goes on inside them and how they interact with one another. This is a huge step forward from the previous films by Dreyer, and indeed from most other films at the time.

As the plot is well cared for by other posters, I will not bother here with any details but must say that I find the relationship between husband and wife to be as realistic as could be hoped for in a 1925 movie: Viktor may be a tyrant but only a household tyrant (they can be bad enough). He is cross, not violent. And Ida may be the typical suffering and under-appreciated wife but she bares her lot with great dignity. She loves him and supports him because she understands that his loss of business gives him hard times; he can barely support his family, yet he must appear like a winner to the outside world. The children seem to understand this as well, particularly the sympathetic and obedient Karen but also her younger brother Frederik, who must nevertheless endure some humiliating punishment. They seem to know every possible little detail that Viktor craves, and they try not to makes things worse for him. That leaves the rebel of the house, Viktor's old nanny, who provides both comical relief and some clever revenge structures. They all tell so much by playing so little, it is as if the story could be told almost by their gestures alone, without the need of the abundance of intertitles which to me are only stating the obvious. We can see what's going on; every frame tells a story and every cut makes us notice how swiftly the action can change from the tense to the out of hand. Dreyer is really himself the master of the house as far as editing is concerned, often creating fast moving scenes by making movement continue from one shot to another in a masterful way that was not common at that time. Today it easy to overlook such important details and consequently loose much of what makes this film special.

When first released, the film was an outstanding success, both with the critics and with the audiences, both in Denmark and abroad, most notably in France, where Le Temps saw its simplicity and attention to small details as a great example to be followed by French directors. In 1925, that included at least Jean Renoir, whose first films were not free from stagey drama and overacting (Nana...). The official Carl Th. Dreyer website provides both this review and others, although you need to brush up your Danish to read them (Well if James Joyce could do it...): It seems that the Danish critics all agreed that this was the best Danish film yet. The site also provides the full manuscript with many scenes missing from the current print. I think I remember seeing a beautiful scene where Karen, full of sisterly love, washes the nude Frederik, who is standing in a basin in the kitchen, but it is now missing. It is, however, shown on a still photo that is both on the DVD and on the Dreyer-site. Was it censored? Or is it just my dirty imagination? There are also some hilarious fantasy scenes in the manuscript, including one where Viktor is horsewhipping the entire family who are pulling him around on a wagon, that were either not filmed or cut somewhere along the way.

Anyway, the film as we have it in the current print remains one of the most moving of its era, as good as the similar ones by Murnau and Pabst from around the same time (say Tartuffe and Geheimnisse einer Seele), and that for me is as good as domestic cinema ever got in the twenties.

India Song (1975)

Death in Calcutta

[10/10 · 2 February 2012]

When a worn 16mm copy of India Song hit our town in the early, post-punk eighties, it created an immediate sensation among the local cinefiles. Several people watched it again and again, and of course some clever bastards started writing articles about its aesthetics, "The aesthetics of absence" or something like that. Almost at the same time, the first solo LP by Richard Jobson of The Skids appeared, with its opening track repeating the hypnotic theme of India Song and Mr. Jobson himself reciting his version of the plot of the movie and making a homage to Duras at the same time. Then the recorded voice of Duras herself also appeared on a double album released by the fashionable Belgian label Les disques du crepuscule. It felt almost as Duras was as contemporary as New Order or The Birthday Party.

Myself, I watched the movie twice and was as hypnotized by its voices as by its visuals. I remember the instant effect of the opening scene: A long, static shot of the hazy, setting sun accompanied by two off screen, female narrators. In a very musical manner they took turns telling the story of the beggar woman who walked from Indochina to Calcutta, followed by the song-like voice of the woman herself. The way the narrators talked in forms of short questions and even shorter answers, as if they were also spectators commenting the visuals (or making up the non- visuals), was something I never had experienced in a movie before, and something I immediately felt as "a shock of the new" or whatever, anyway as something beautiful beyond my understanding, or lack of understanding as the plot started getting more complicated, with even more narrators joining in. I gave it all up but loved it anyway. It remained for years a special cinematic memory, on par with discovering Tarkovsky's Mirror at about the same time. But then, unlike the films of Tarkovsky, which were shown over and over, India Song completely vanished from the local screens. The other films by Duras never even appeared.

Now, about thirty years later, with none of my then fellow watchers around, I have seen and heard the DVD of India Song some more times, as well as a handful of others by Duras. It is without doubt still a very special movie indeed, and I guess the best of the bunch, although Nathalie Granger comes close. But I am still also almost at a loss trying to understand why this movie is so powerful. I admit that the dark and grainy 16mm look is nothing special. And no, the french settings around the Château does not look much like the heated delta land in India mentioned in the dialogues. But no, it does not matter. So what is it? Well...

The music and the voices! It captures me every time; the way the bewildering narration and the slow piano blues or the upbeat orchestra waltzes blend together with the static or slowly panned visuals. I may now begin to unravel the plot, but hope never to come to a full understanding; the theme of the "Lepers of the heart" caught in their colonial abyss playing out their hopeless love affairs sets the tone, but the finer points of the narrative will forever elude me, I hope.

I can see why the movie is so much discussed in academic circles and why it is hated so much by the average movie fan. Despite its complexities, it seems quite simple. Love it or leave it. A complexity: As with other work by Duras, there is a lot of discrepancies between what we hear and what we see. The actors does not speak, yet we hear their voices. They move off screen, yet we still hear their voices. They all seem to deceive one another, yet the attraction of the central Anne Marie Stretter is never in doubt. But we cannot see why; is it because she is the only white female around? The only remains of a white, piano-driven elegance among the (never seen) beggars and lepers and the smell of death (incense). She is a mystery I guess, and that is her attraction. The simplicity: Long, static shots and characters moving ever so slowly or just posing as a still life. Even fans of Marienbad might lose their temper. But for me, India Song is the better of the two. It goes right to my heart. Perhaps it is its female quality.

Agatha and the Limitless Readings (1981)

Agatha on the beach

[8/10 · 9 October 2011]

This film immediately reveals itself as play by showing page seven of the printed book. Sea sounds are heard, then a gentle piano waltz plays as we read the text slowly scrolling upward: "It is a drawing room of an uninhabited house. There is a divan. Some armchairs. A window lets in the winter light. One hears the sound of the sea. The winter light is dim and misty. There will be no other light. There will only be this winter light. We see a man and a woman. They are silent. They seem to have spoken at length before we see them. They are impervious to our presence..." And so on.

This is perhaps a typical trait of Duras: We are told that we see a man and a woman, but what we are seeing is a page in a book. When we actually see the first scene, we do not see anyone, either, only the distant sea through a window. But we hear the calm voice of Duras herself, telling the male character, her brother, about a man, possibly her husband. The brother and sister have met, it seems, after a long separation, at a deserted seaside hotel to tell each other news. But it soon turns out that what they are obsessed with is the past, or telling stories of the past, or making up stories of the past; of how they loved each other as children, of how they love each other now. As the dialogue turns into a meditation on the deceit of remembrance, the camera moves slowly about the darkened interiors, the winterly grey beaches, pale blue sea and cloudy skies. Suddenly, after about ten minutes, there is Bulle Ogier spread out on a sofa; she moves her lips a little, but remain silent as we continue to hear the off screen voices. And then, but outside a glass door looking out at the sea, there is Yann Andrea. But he is mainly absent during the film, and we never see them speak. Some times Yann Andrea is almost seen clearly but mostly he is blurred behind some window. Seen, however, is the camera in the lobby, directed into the mirror reflecting another mirror. This play with absence and reflections mirrors (yes) the twists and turns of the dialogue. Indeed; "Agatha" is only the name of the child's mirror reflection.

But we are not only told stories about the past. Something is happening now, apart from storytelling; she is about to leave the next morning and have arranged this meeting as a farewell. Yet she will always love him, she says, indeed it turns out that that this going away will in fact seal their love forever; the pain of separation will keep love alive. He is not assured of this, however, and asks her to stay another year. He is the insecure one, she knows exactly what she is doing. She says. But can we believe her? "You were always lying", he tells her. So there we are, not knowing who to trust, and why we only get to see glimpses of streets, passing ships, and a nearby industrial town.

I guess the most enigmatic part of the dialogue is the extended scenes we witness by ear, but are not shown, about their childhood love affair, of how their naked bodies entangled their identities, and of how they could not see each other as different form their other early lovers. Much is hinted at, but not told: Were they seven, twelve, were they fifteen when they explored each others minds and bodies? Did this very physical "growing up together" mean that they actually made love to each other as they did with their friends? As we listen, we are constantly aware about what the dialogue might be hiding. They might be deceiving each other, and they might be deceiving us.

While we wonder we watch. More beaches, more sky in blues and grey. And listen to the sound of the waves as the piano plays its waltzes (by Brahms) that now and then seem to fade away into the past as well. It turns out that she used to play these waltzes as a child but never managed to play them right, so one day she just gave up. This child giving up music will seem familiar to anyone who has seen Nathalie Granger, as indeed the role of the piano and the whole style of the film will seem familiar to anyone who has seen India Song. But this is a much more elusive film, because it takes this signature style so far, it is almost as we did not even need to see any characters on the screen at all; the dialogue and the deserted hotel by the sea in winter would be sufficient.

But sufficient of what? I do not need neither to dig into the familiar sea symbols nor to the biographical Duras lore here but I might say that this film works well for some reason, and works well as cinema, not as filmed theatre. The discrepancies between sight and sound could not be as easily produced on stage. The film produces a great calm in me. Maybe because of the voice of Duras, of Brahms, maybe because of the repetitive scenes of sea and sky. The deserted places also look great in the winter light. But this is not as great a film as those mentioned above. I respect all of its means, and maybe it is not its business to be "great" either. I take it as it is; there are not many such films, and I am very grateful to Duras for making it. Now that it is freely available online I hope more people will see it.

Destroy, She Said (1969)

"Anything is possible"

[7/10 · 20 July 2011]

I find Detruire dit-elle to lack much of the quality of great films directed by Duras, like Nathalie Granger and India song, but still think it interesting enough to see some times and write a few words about. Perhaps it is its more static feel, stressing a little bit too much that this is a play we are watching, that stops it from being a true cinematic experience. The current print is not very good either, but then the cinematography is also no more than adequate, as if it was a production for TV.

We are presented with a vast hotel and its garden with desolate chairs spread around. There is also a tennis court. Around the garden is the wood, which we only see from a distance but still hear its birds. The entire film consists of conversations between four people, five in the final scenes. Sometimes they talk right outside the hotel, sometimes right inside it. Of the interiors of the deserted hotel we do not see much, and of the surroundings nothing although we are told that there is a beautiful spot nearby. Not even the characters manage to see the spot. They all seem to be waiting or in desire of something, as so are we. This may produce some discontent. We are always denied any sort of visual pleasure, except for watching the characters speak. So what remains to get our attention is the rather complex dialogue, both off screen and on screen. What of it?

It seems to me that the discussions all circle around a game of storytelling. As in India Song, there are first two women commenting the "action" off screen. After a while, when the women are on screen, we hear the men comment. This puts the on screen dialogue in a sort of paranoid position, it is constantly overheard by the off screen voices. The men may speak about love, the women may speak about fear but all the time they are making up little stories for themselves, and for us. It seems that they are waiting also for something terrible, a destruction of sorts, to be brought about by the young. Well then, anything to pass the time. What the stories are about may not be of much interest but the way they go about telling them is.

The two men, both "german Jews"(when is this taking place?), are literary inclined, Stein is, in his own words, "in the process of becoming a writer", and Max Thor is a professor in French, also, according to his young wife Alissa, in a similar writing process. The two starts a strange cooperation: We are told by one of the off screen voices that "Max Thor writes what Stein watches". But we do not see this. So what do we trust, our eyes or our ears? Neither I guess but this is the kind of game I find interesting. We can say "this is not really happening" or "I do not believe what I hear or what I see" but the film is still there. If we play the game we have to see it. It gets a little cruel perhaps, especially towards the older, nervous Elizabeth who is waiting for her man, but she does not seem to mind; in fact she likes it. And I like it too. I like the way the rhythm is slowly working, never cutting scenes too fast but letting the characters rather soft and hesitant voices take effect. They never shout. These may be worried people but the way they worry is rather pleasant to witness, if I may say so.

There are also for our entertainment some, if rather basic, tricks with mirrors and with cards along that way that almost elevates the play into a film of sorts: When points of view shift, the stage at least is benefited by multiple ways of seeing. But mostly it is the talking that does it. Multiple talking, perhaps, but handled with great taste. From the little I have read about the films of Duras, it is the priority of the sound that is most discussed. The way it often is out of synch with what we see. Here there is not any sounds present which we cannot locate by what we see, just the birds and sound of the men playing tennis, but the sound of the voices still does their tricks with us. I find I listen to the voices the way I often, lazy, listen to music, as a sensory experience, without thinking too much about what I hear. The contrast for example between the whispering, lush voice of Alissa, playfully courting Stein; "Stein, mon amour" and his dry, matter of fact response, I find both hilarious and heartfelt, as if they are only playing, but that the playing of it makes it real.

The play gets a little out of hand when Elizabeth's husband Bernard arrives, as he is at first clearly unable to play by the "rules"; he is an alien figure in the play. When Alissa says that they have been very interested in his wife, he first gets upset but then when he learns that the interest was purely "for literary reasons", he is completely bewildered. He claims he does not read novels anymore, because they have ceased to be "stories". He is clearly the odd man out. And when Alissa simply says "Destroy", he is completely lost. But when Stein repeats "She said 'destroy'", Bernard looks like he suddenly is accepting the play, as he mutters "Anything is possible", says he wants to stay but then takes his wife and leaves.

And? The end is dark and surprising. Not to be told, so see (hear) for yourself.

Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977)

A rare beauty

[8/10 · 17 July 2011]

Having seen Duras' earlier film Nathalie Granger for the first time this morning after breakfast, and promptly posting a positive review for it, I found nothing better to do after dinner (It has been raining all day) to see Baxter, Vera Baxter, also for the first time.

Before the introductory titles are finished, we see, in bright colours, a high class, pale, semi nude woman lying down in four different poses. What we hear, however, is the sound of the sea. When the film "proper" begins, we see a modern house, and learn by an off screen voice that it is for rent. A scene in a tavern or hotel introduces a clerk that tells a female visitor that the house is rented out every summer to Vera Baxter, and also that something terrible happened there some time ago. There is a journalist present who has tried to get in touch with Vera Baxter without any success. The visitor repeats the name with great accuracy; "Baxter, Vera Baxter". And then the music begins. The music?

Yes, the music. During the remaining film there is a constant loop of some basic guitar chords and a high pitched flute that are intruding on both the characters and the viewers. It seems there is some party of strangers nearby, but no one ever sees it. The sound is never distant in a natural way, however, but very much on the soundtrack, and creates very much a stage of its own, an autonomous sound stage, so to speak. This is not unlike that of the sounds of the beggar in India Song, but my reaction to it is quite different: In India Song it gave the film an extra dimension that I found totally mesmerizing, but this flute soon got on my nerves, I must admit. And perhaps the effect is intended but the characters do not seem to mind, on the contrary, they, at least the life weary Vera Baxter, connect it with life and with living.

It seems to be some secrecy involved in the renting of the house. Jean Baxter has already rented it, but his wife Vera is not informed about this, and she is not certain that the price is right. First we see Vera taking to an old friend at the house, but she soon leaves. The visitor then mysteriously enters the house, meets with Vera, and the rest of the film takes place there, only interrupted by some fine exterior shots of the surrounding woods and the beach by the Atlantic. Much of the dialogue is obscure, as is expected in a Duras script, and I do not intend to offer any extensive analysis of it after a single viewing. Treason and infidelity abounds, as can be heard in a phone call from Jean. The visitor enquires about her marriage but also seems to play her part in the game,

The house also plays its important part. It is a fairly modernistic piece of architecture; vast windows from floor to ceiling revealing a landscape covered by trees looking over the ocean. As such the house is the absolute opposite of the Gothic and spooky old building by the pond in Nathalie Granger. Here the house is barren with only some creaking black leather furniture, but its doorways are framing the shots as would the rooms have a life of their own that they, or the house as a whole, imposes on the characters. As they are "framed" by the music, they are also framed by the house.

Gilles Deleuze, in Cinema 2 (1985), finds Duras' use of houses significant, he points out that her films "were marked by all the powers of the house, or of house and grounds together, fear and desire, talking and being quiet, going out and coming back, creating the event and burying it, etc. Marguerite Duras was a great filmmaker of the house, such an important theme in cinema, not simply because women 'inhabit' houses, in every sense, but because passions 'inhabit' women: as in Destroy she said, and especially Nathalie Granger and, later still, Vera Baxter." I take this to mean that like the way the two women in this film is framed by the house and its rooms, their passions are also dictated by the building, or inhabited as Deleuze says. As they move about the house, they also constantly talk about it, its environs and (especially) its high price. They might be the talking subjects but they are also the objects enclosed by the house. This interaction I find interesting but it is an interaction that you can see in many films, for example in Antonioni, and of course in countless horror movies. I guess we are made especially aware of it in Duras, however, because the dialogue itself seems to go nowhere, the talking goes around and around like an old dance record, or indeed like the music loop in the film. At least that is my first impression of the film, that the (modern) house and the (ancient?) music have as much importance as the dialogue. They do not seem to fit together, the house calls for a modern score but does not get it. The dialogue is caught in the gap. The result is (positive) friction.

So yes, I like it. I have, however, rated this film a point below Nathalie Granger, and not only because I am fed up with the music. The film did not have as strong effect on me as the more claustrophobic Nathalie Granger had this morning. It is more distant. But however much ellipsis or void there is in the films of Duras, I remain thankful that they are made at all. I feel at home in them. They deserve to be more seen, for they have a rare beauty that is all of their own.

Nathalie Granger (1972)

Alas, poor Nathalie

[9/10 · 17 July 2011]

I just saw Nathalie Granger for the first time this morning, and must say that I am now both highly impressed and deeply moved by the experience. Impressed with the professional execution of what must be a difficult script to shoot. Moved by the strange combination of quiet serenity and uneasy claustrophobia produced by the interacting of the silent femmes and the Gothic looking house, garden and pond. That this was the very house Duras lived in may also contribute to the experience.

The professionalism is perhaps not so surprising. The beautiful black and white cinematography is by Ghislain Cloquet. He worked with Alain Resnais in the fifties but for me his most important work is for Robert Bresson: Au hazard Balthasar, Mouchette and Une femme douce; three of the most captivating movies I have ever seen. As for the actors, both Bose and Moreau have worked with Antonioni, and the latter of course also with Truffaut and Bunuel. The meeting of these people with the dense script of one the major writers of the time should call for the utmost attention on the side of the viewer; every scene invites close inspection as well as an open mind to what we are seeing just as much as what we are not seeing, a presence or an absence. We may not see much on the screen but, contrary to other reports on this site, I would not call Nathalie Granger a minimalist work. I find it to be as full of mystery as any tale of horror you might name, even if the means involved may be sparse. Indeed (perhaps due to dark Isabelle lurking about draped in her long, black cape by the gloomy pond in the overgrown garden), the film has as much a vampirish look as Dreyer's Vampyr or Jean Rollin's Le viol de Vampire. And this look is completely justified by the ongoing killings in the vicinity as well as the statement uttered that Isabelle's problematic daughter Nathalie "would like to kill someone". The conflict between these horrors, and the quiet mood surrounding the characters, creates a tension in a most skillful way; the effect on a receptive mind can be shattering.

The professionalism therefore, might be taken for granted, but many professionally made movies do not move me. This does, and almost as much as the Bresson films mentioned above. But where Bresson, as well as Dreyer, work within a spiritual context that might more easily produce transcendence, Duras, more in tradition of Antonioni perhaps, works without spirituality, at least without the presence of spirituality. Yet I might call the effect the film has on me as transcendent. Why? It may be precisely the very absence that contributes to the paradox that this art of the void can work its mysterious wonders. Even the few, uncertain notes of Nathalie's piano practice that constantly accompanies the silence of the rooms, seem to contribute to the experience. She may be giving up music, but it seems that her life is breathing in these few notes. If the music stops, then what will happen? So, although the cinematography and the settings might create their own poetry, I think it is the story of Nathalie that moves me.

We know from the school reports that Nathalie is in trouble, we also know that it is her film, at least it is named after her. Yet we do not see much of her. But we do hear her, her playing is setting the mood. And in the empty rooms, we may also look for her, even it is clear that she is not there. But we see her things: "This belongs to Nathalie, do not touch", a note says. Her absence is present. So what? So she may be in the garden chasing the black cat, but even that without much luck. When she tries to put the cat in the baby carriage, it runs away. She kicks the carriage violently over. Are we to assume some sort of correspondence between the unseen killers and the poor Nathalie? In a different script she would run away and become their victim of course, but in this film we are left to wonder about her destiny. There are many such uncertainties, and they all do their tiny bit of work on the bewildered spectators, of which at least I might say that I will certainly watch this film again, and that with still greater expectations. I do not usually become so moved by works of cinema, so any viewing that make me write a review within an instant, I will take good care of. Well, Nathalie Granger, up on the top of my shelf you go, beside the other greats.

Just one hesitation, though: The interlude of the intruding washing machine salesman, hilariously played by the then fresh Depardieu, although indeed very funny in itself, might be a problem: Precisely because it seems to stand alone. With the women we might just gaze at him in wonder, and agree, as they say, that "you are not a salesman". But, I could add, we might also say: "You do not belong here", that is, in this film. But the women, however, seem amused. He could be from another planet as far as they are concerned. There are just two scenes with Depardieu, but they tend to dominate far too much, as the very presence of this big and clumsy man (which we also now may have seen too much of in later movies) is all it takes to relieve our mind of young and tender Nathalie, at least while he is on the screen. He is a spectacle in himself. The women are diverted for a while. So are we. But is this comic interlude necessary? At the moment, I am not sure, at least I cannot see why.

Once Upon a Time (1922)

Out of Illyria

[6/10 · 30 April 2011]

Edvin Kau states in his book Dreyers filmkunst (1989) that Dreyer had purely commercial reasons for making Der var engang. After the prior Swedish and German productions he needed a financial success in Denmark to secure his position as a director there. The "fairy tale comedy", written by the well respected and much loved author Holger Drachmann in 1887, was much played in the theaters at the time and almost considered a national treasure. By lifting it off the stage, and taking some famous theater actors with it, Dreyer could cash in on its popularity. The play is full of lightweight songs and Shakespearian frolics, but Dreyer wisely cut down on the musical side and tried to concentrate on the human drama as well as adding a great deal of countryside scenery to show off the beauty of Danish nature.

The story deals with the rather spoilt princess of Illyria, who gets her kicks from sending suitors to the gallows and otherwise behaves like a regular screwball heroine along with half a dozen likewise screwy maids, who of course looks absolutely enchanting on the screen, all dressed in fancy white gowns and bearing some enormous white hairdos. They are seen playing themselves silly around the shining white interiors of the château and in the garden in some delightful scenes that looks like they were cut out of some early Lubitsch comedy. When the prince of Denmark arrives we are in for some "daring" erotic twists and some more or less magical tricks, but generally it is much ado about nothing. The sad result, however, is that the princess makes a fool of herself and is duly forced into exile. This part of the film we have almost complete, and I dare say it can be seen with much enjoyment by anyone not allergic to light comedy. You might even laugh once or twice. I did.

As the first part of the film is all gay and white, the second part deals with the perils of exile and poverty, and (almost) leaves the comedy genre for some rural hard times in the Danish woods. But there is idyll as well, at least for us, as the woods themselves are filmed in all their misty glory and enchanted fairyland shadows. I guess it is these scenes, making the most of ancient oaks in beautiful evening light and sinister folk lurking about, that will appeal to the Dreyer fan today. At least it appealed to me. There are also some fine and dark interiors of the earthen lodgings the poor princess must endure, making for a telling contrast to the whites of the château. The photography gets really interesting here, as it captures to great effect both the burning fireplaces inside and the fading rays outside, not to mention the typically excellent close ups that we expect in a Dreyer film. The princess as well seems to change with the surroundings, no more white gowns and fancy hairdo for her. Some might say that she also looses some of her wicked sex appeal along the way, but I guess we are meant to see her brought down to earth and being all the better for it. The comedy also goes elsewhere, along with the familiar fairy tale structures, but I won't get into the plot any further, for alas it would bring us into the missing final part of the film. Instead we are told by the preserved intertitles what happens.

If we had it all, I for one would almost certainly rate this film above the thematically "weightier" Blade af Satans bog, mainly because the cinematic settings in Der var en gang are far superior in their handling of light and shadows. The content may be light, but the form has depth.

Leaves From Satan's Book (1920)

Expect the Spanish inquisition

[5/10 · 29 April 2011]

This pretentious historical drama of Satan's part in the treason of Jesus and the horrors of the Spanish inquisition, the French revolution and the Finnish civil war is stylistically a curious move backwards for Dreyer and the Danish film industry. After the technical innovations by director Benjamin Christensen, already in Det hemmelighedsfulde X (1914), as well as in Dreyers own first feature, Præsidenten (1919), which pioneered the use of both natural lightning and chiaroscuro effects that looked forwards to German expressionism, Blade af Satans bog returns to the all too brightly lit costume drama which dominated much of the early cinema. This means that even windowless rooms with only a few candles burning is lit up like it was broad daylight all over, eventually killing any sense of sinister atmosphere that the plots here surely calls for. Outside night scenes are likewise often shot in daylight, probably awaiting blue tinting. What could be genuinely scary with more imaginative lightning and a more cinematic style, remain lifeless tableaux. There are a few scenes that uses shadows to great effect, but in a film that is 157 minutes long the overall impact is rather dull, despite the excellent new, but untinted print provided on the DVD by the Danish Film Institute from a duplicate negative.

Despite these shortcomings, there are many interesting touches for fans of Dreyer's more acclaimed work. For instance the torture scenes in Spain that anticipates the ones in Jeanne d 'Arc, and the many carefully arranged portrait pans of elders that is used again (more sophistically) in Ordet. In the Finnish episode we also get some very dramatic scenes that combines fast action with small details in close ups, expertly framed and imaginatively put together by cross cutting. After all the static of the previous episodes, the swiftness in Finland comes as a blessing and a fitting climax bringing the history lesson up to date. That is, if you don't mind the white propaganda - proves you don't have to be a bolshie to see red. Thematically, there is also the interesting touch that Dreyer shows his obsession with how personal love affairs often dominate the course of historical events. If someone is tortured or executed, you bet it is because she failed to satisfy her jealous lover, who then turns out to make faith work fatally against her. The white girl loaded with hand grenades that captures two reds just when they were about to execute a brave white fighter, is of course also on a personal revenge trip, even if it is all for Finland, of course. There are enough of such situations here for more than a few topical theses, but I'll leave it at that. Anyone interested in Dreyer should see this anyway.

Oh, I forgot to mention Intolerance? But then it turns out, according to Casper Tybjerg, that the manuscript for Blade af Satans bog was written in 1913 (Oh yeah? I hear you say, but the Finnish episode is set in 1918? Go figure), and probably inspired by the Italian film Satanas by Luigi Maggi (1912), which (also probably?) inspired Intolerance. But Dreyer has confirmed that the close up of Siri's face in the Finnish suicide scene was directly inspired by the close up of Lilian Gish in Griffith's court scene. So there.

The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne (1945)

A cruel picture

[8/10 · 29 April 2011]

This picture always had a great effect on me. It was the first Bresson I saw, some twenty-five years ago as the opener of a Bresson season at the local Cinemateque. Even all the masterpieces that followed could not quite erase the effect of Les dames du Bois de Boulogne as a very special picture on its own terms. It was cruel, certainly. And I liked that. With the luxury of the Criterion DVD I have seen it again a handful of times, but fail to find out exactly why it still affects me so. But then exactitude may not be what the picture is about. It is more the creeping up on you of some unknown animal. So no plot spoilers here, instead a metaphor warning might be called for.

I think it is the tone of the picture that affects me. It is a subdued tone, lushly orchestrated as if from a distance. Not only by the discrete soundtrack of Jean-Jacques Grünewald - always playing softly in the background, yet always insistent - but by the devilishly clever way Helene designs her revenge on Jean. She is in no hurry and can afford the luxury of seeing her plot slowly starting to work. It is a cruel plot and it is cruel on the spectator as well. But along with the cruelty comes the dark pleasure of being confined and controlled by remote. It is a modern tragedy. No grand Aristotelian scenes but a steadily forward moving machine that works its evil wonders with great precision. If we allow ourselves to let go and face the music we are just as much in the power of Bresson as Jean and Agnes are in the power of Helene. It is almost as if you can hear the dissonant Tristan chord but distanced, lost or stuck somewhere, never being able again to give the emotions free reign. There is no magical potion. Instead there are the uncalled for flowers and the four enclosed walls that confine Agnes. She can still breathe in the stuffed air and dance within her small room, but it is exactly her former flowery and dancing days that now make her life outside seem impossible. Most of us do not share such a dilemma. Some get bored. It is to Bresson's credit that some of us still sense the tone.

In Les anges du peche it was the convent that was an asylum from the outside world, in Les dames du Bois de Boulogne it is the barren apartment that, like the convent, is not quite the shelter the heroine would like it to be. In both these films the outside is closing in, but in Les dames it is helped on its way by the true femme fatale of Helene. Helene's design makes it the cruel picture it is. It also makes the second picture the more captivating of the two.

The President (1919)

A cinematographic exercise in painterly style

[6/10 · 28 April 2011]

This film is very interesting for various reasons. I will here look briefly at its style, which was explicitly made by Dreyer (confirmed in a letter to Erik Ulrichsen 11th March 1958, now in the Danish Film Museum) to make the interiors reflect the characters. For this, he modeled the sets after paintings by Vilhelm Hammershøi and James Whistler. This is very apparent if one looks at Whistler's portrait of his Mother against a gray wall, and the many Hammershøi paintings where he balances the model(s) also against gray, cool blue or white walls decorated with a few small portraits strictly arranged. I would also like to add that a lot of the white faces and hands, which Dreyer often frames in almost complete darkness, reminds me of how the graphic work by Edvard Munch can make any face look like a premature death mask. There is certainly in this film much interplay between the Nordic darkness of the soul and the barren interiors of the late aristocracy. These arrangements make the film appear as a well thought out study of how to balance painterly and cinematographic style. However, many of these carefully constructed scenes are very short. I would assume that longer takes would make for a very much more beautiful and contemplative film, but alas it would also slow down the hectic and melodramatic plot, which just gets more frantic with each scene, ending in a tour de force of cross cutting a la Griffith. So in a way the plot kills the style. Oh well.

The current version was created in 1999 from the original nitrate negative and released on DVD in 2004 by the Danish Film Institute. It is tinted in amber, blue and red. Compared with film stills I have seen in black and white, the DVD looks very dark. For example the scene when Karl Victor reads the letter informing him that it is his daughter that will be prosecuted for infanticide, the wallpaper behind him is completely obscured, making the white passepartout framing the portrait on the wall shine in the darkness. In the still of the same scene you can clearly see the pattern in the wallpaper around the picture, making the whole scene more naturally lighted. Since the lightning in the film as a whole is full of dark imagery, this loss of detail makes the film look more expressionistic and gloomy than originally intended. Of course, that might only make it more interesting for fans of Nosferatu, Vampyr and other Gothic nightmares. But Præsidenten is not a Gothic tale, but rather a moral melodrama typical of its time, with echoes of Ibsen, Strindberg and Söderberg (writer of Gertrud). But as seen in the current version, it certainly looks Gothic - and some might find its charm just because of that.

Angels of Sin (1943)

Tolstoy in the convent

[7/10 · 27 April 2011]

More people should see this beautiful film! It is easily available on amazon.fr (with subtitles), free for streaming on youtube or google video, or for download on the usual sites. It looks great and the print is fine for 1943. The grim corridors of the prison and the foggy streets outside the prison, makes for a suitably noirish contrast to the shining white walls and robes in the convent. Although the professional actors and the suspenseful plot make this an atypical Bresson film, the careful camera framing and the discrete panning produces typically sparse and detailed interiors. The plot may be melodramatic and music a bit intruding at times, but almost every scene is a joy to behold. There are a lot of interesting little touches that show in great detail the daily life and the more mundane side of convent life, clothing regulations, mores etc.

I find that I watch this film more for the aesthetic quality of the individual scenes than for any statement the film as a whole might have. There are also many oddities: For example when Therese knocks upon the convent door after shooting her betrayer, sister Anne Marie is chanting a text from what, one might assume, is a book of prayers. The title, however, reads: "Leo Tolstoj : Krig og fred", which makes it a Norwegian or Danish version of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Strange? But the most impressive and memorable sight in the film for me is the early scene when the submissive sisters lay face down with arms outstretched cross-like on the cold floor. It is almost frightening in its austere beauty, and also very strange for anyone without convent practice. It is the strangeness that does it. Like every Bresson film, I guess.