Astonishing Silent Documentary: Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages (1922)

With live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble. Häxan is arguably the most original and impressive of all Swedish silent films, and today is still a technically and cinematographically astonishing achievement. An eccentric mixture of didactic lecture and spectacular dramatization, the film recounts popular beliefs in the devil and superstition throughout the ages—with director Christensen himself playing Lucifer—and through striking imagery depicts the hypocrisy, sexual repression, and witch hunts of medieval times. Christensen was Danish, as was most of the cast and crew, but the film was entirely financed by the Swedish production company Svensk Filmindustri, which gave Christensen unprecedented artistic freedom and an enormous budget. Tinted print restored by The Swedish Film Institute.
104 min. With Swedish and English intertitles. Introduced by Jon Wengström.

Price: $free