Häxan
Tags: cult

Plot synopsis:
=== Part 1 ===
A scholarly dissertation on the appearances of demons and witches in primitive and medieval culture, a number of photographs of statuary, paintings, and woodcuts are used as demonstrative pieces. In addition, several large scale models are employed to demonstrate medieval concepts of the structure of the solar system and the commonly accepted depiction of Hell.
=== Part 2 ===
A series of vignettes theatrically demonstrating medieval superstition and beliefs concerning witchcraft, including Satan (played by Christensen himself) tempting a sleeping woman away from her husband's bed and terrorizing a group of monks. Also shown is a woman purchasing a love potion from a supposed witch, and a sequence showing a supposed witch dreaming of flying through the air and attending a witches' gathering.
=== Part 3 ===
A long narrative broken up into several parts; set in the Middle Ages, it concerns an old woman accused of witchcraft by a dying man's family. The narrative is used to demonstrate the treatment of suspected witches by the religious authorities of the time. The old woman, after being tortured, admits to heavy involvement in witchcraft, including detailed descriptions of a Witches' Sabbath, even going so far as to "name" other supposed witches, including two of the women in the dying man's household. Eventually, the dying man's wife is arrested as a witch when one of the clergymen accuses her of bewitching him.
=== Part 4 ===
The final part of the film seeks to demonstrate how the superstitions of old are better understood now. Christensen seeks to make the claim that most who were accused of witchcraft were possibly mentally ill, and in modern times, such behavior is interpreted as a disease. His case revolves around vignettes about a somnambulist and a kleptomaniac, the implication being that these behaviors would have been thought of as demonically-influenced in medieval times whereas modern societies recognize them as psychological ailments. There is heavy irony, however, in the observation that the "temperate shower of the clinic" i.e. the treatment of "hysterical women" in a modern institution, has replaced medieval solutions such as burning at the stake.

Review: Haxan delivers in spades.This 1922 Danish silent film about black magic, witches, satanism, and the persecution of said subjects during the middle-ages, which attempts to make a connection between the ancient phenomena and the modern study of hysteria (modern in 1922), has been wonderfully presented by The Criterion Collection in their new dvd.
Narrated by Danish silent film scholar Caspar Tybjerg, the commentary centers on the director Benjamin Christensen's life in film, the Danish silent film industry, origin of the documentary film genre, technical aspects of Haxan, the cast of Haxan, historical aspects of the study of hysteria in psychology circles, the origins of the devil as a character in media, and of course, the phenomena of witchcraft and witch hunting.
This was a very engaging look at Christensen, his film, and the sociological atmosphere both during the middle-ages, and during the time of Haxan's production.As for the 1967 version narrated by William S.
Criterion has done a great job of preserving the film as it was intended to be seen with censored footage restored, an excellent tinted print, a corrected "projection" speed, a new score that recreates the music played at the original Danish premiere, and some interesting extras.
Fans of "The Blair Witch Project" should take notice, especially considering that the Danish title of this film is "Haxan", also the name of the movie company that created "Blair Witch".Director Benjamin Christensen appears as a leering, tongue-wagging Satan, with very realistic makeup.
The witches are shown with the Devil and his minions performing various acts of sacrilege and perversion that must have been extremely shocking at the time the movie originally appeared, and would be offensive to many people still.
The writer and director Benjamin Christensen discloses a historical view of the witches through the seven parts of this silent movie.
Finally Benjamin Christensen compares the behavior of hysteria of the modern women of 1921 with the behavior of the witches in the Middle Ages, concluding that they are very similar."Häxan" is incredibly perfect for a for a 1922 movie.
I have to say I admire the courage Benjamin Christensen showed in making this film which not only must have offended the sensibilities of the time for the obvious reasons but also because it dared to champion reason over superstition as a way of explaining things which we do not fully understand.
After many tribulations and false starts (including having my Order cancelled by the retailer due to lack of funds on my Credit Card and having the DVD stolen - by some stingy customs official, I presume  when it was finally shipped!), I recently managed to sit down and watch in its entirety, The Criterion Collection's DVD of Benjamin Christensen's HAXAN.What an amazing film!
I do not know how Christensen was allowed to get away with it back then  and indeed the film was heavily censored in its initial showings around the world  but I guess it was evident that the director's aim was not to wallow gratuitously in sensationalism but to portray as realistic a tableau of witchcraft through the ages as was possible at the time.
Directed by Scandinavian filmmaker Benjamin Christensen, Haxan' / Witchcraft Through the Ages' (1922) is a head-trippy silent film depicting black magic, witchcraft, and demonology from the middle ages to the 20th century.
Not as intense or as shocking today as upon its initial release, the film is filled with nightmarish images that are certainly profane and explicit, but also humorous and downright silly.Yes, sex goes hand-in-hand with Satan, and Christensen's flamboyant portrayal of the aforementioned character, complete with flicking, wanton tongue, drives home the point (well, that and a peppering of nudity).
Most of our popular-images of witches, demons and horror-film monstrosity comes from this era, and Haxan is surely a great-contributor to this reservoir.Of-note, I think Ken Russell must have seen this film before making his magnum-opus, "The Devils" (1971).
And, while not all of the film is perfect and it's a bit uneven, the overall production is really quite amazing as you have a hard time believing that such special effects and makeup were possible almost a century ago.The film purports to be a history of witchcraft, though the vast majority of the film is a supposed recreation of a case from the Middle Ages.
The director himself and others (including critics like Ebert) have said that silent films work great for horror's nightmare landscape where excessive dialogue or explanations could get in the way of the unsettling mood.
The scene of the witches' broomstick flight is a well-done special effect for the time.Haxan is in a documentary format with dramatic recreations of the witch accusing and torturing to obtain confessions and includes stuff right out of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' (that infamously repulsive 1480's witch hunters' handbook of choice written by two Dominican monks who had previous papal sanction to hunt witches and whose writings in the 'MM' embraced highly sadistic methods).
There is some great iconic horror film imagery contained in Haxan where it seems to interpret those olde tyme artistic depictions of witches and their alleged Sabbaths.
It's ironic that ultra-religious types complain the most about horror films when some of their former religious leaders long ago helped to dream up some of the visions later contained in horror films.Haxan reminds us that alleged 'witches' were people like: folk medicine practitioners, old impoverished women with physical deformations, or simply women that someone else had a disagreement with and figured would be easy to dispatch of by accusing her of what was considered that worst of crimes.
We've come so far *cough* The Criterion disc I watched also contained the 1968 version where the film was re-edited and given a (horribly out of place) jazz score and voice-over narration by William S.
It's clear the film wants to have it both ways.The film ultimately deconstructs the act of witchcraft from one of maleficence and devil worship to one of mental illness; cheer- leading for the current time's rational thinking winning out against superstition.
Then like a blunt hammer, the film knocks us into reality and asks "what did you learn?" Plus, considering the film was released in 1922, we're experiencing a "modern" rationality that included the concepts of hysteria and electroshock therapy so Haxan isn't exactly the bastion of progressive thinking it thinks it is.From a historical perspective, Haxan is an interesting little relic that provides some stunning visual tableaux that rivals Nosferatu (1922) in the horror genre.
This film was way ahead of it's time.This documentary is a really interested look at the history of witchcraft.
One other similarity is that in both films, witches use bundles of sticks to carry the body parts of victims.HAXAN was banned in many places because it shows the clergy in a bad light -- fat, easily yielding to temptations, corrupt, sanctimonious, projecting their own human corruption onto their victims.
A wry sense of humor -- if that is what it is -- would also make this film similar to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.In any event, it is an interesting look at early horror and has some very atmospheric scenes employing good FX -- all the more impressive because they were done in 1922, long before computer graphics..
Even as I don't think the 1st and 7th parts work really so well - the former is more like a Powerpoint-slide presentation (albeit some dark slides) and the latter doesn't really add much and is dated with terms like 'hysteria' - the more times I watch this, the more I get into how disturbing and honest the imagery is, or at least the intent behind it.You're left to make your own assumptions by the majority of what this director shows you, and the images of the many monks and so-called "religious" men (aka Men in Power) is like pre-Joan-of-Arc Dreyer imagery.
It's akin to how Scorsese shows gangsters and criminals or Jordan Belfort: you'd almost think this movie is borderline endorsing the burning of women at the stake for actually being witches, but such is the power of the anthropological state of things.Its impact lies in how much it sticks to its guns as far as showing what the world was like then from that of late 15th/early 16th century Middle Ages when the Inquisition was still going on (that part is left out, this is squarely about witches and while men are mentioned among the "8 million men/women/children" killed during this time, you know who is really the target of the Church at the time), and this includes the director showing us how someone like Maria the Weaver's descriptions of hell and Satan and people literally kissing his ass is conjured up in the minds of these men, and the torture devices that were used.The first time I watched this I almost thought the director sided *with* then men in a way, but I was mistaken; it's pretty clear to see how women were basically massacred in the name of, literally, witch-hunts.
Look how many witches you had and never even knew it!" The film jumps to the present and says that modern science has shown that many of the symptoms of witchcraft - such as lack of sensitivity to pain - have been found to be the result of hysteria and thus has a psychological component, not a demonic one.
It's a stark and unsettling film packed with the kind of horrific imagery that has since become clichéd in the cinema, and yet some scenes retain their brutal power and feel surprisingly fresh and terrifying.The documentary begins on a slow note with lots of description and not much in the way of life, but after a time the staged dramatisations begin and this is where HAXAN comes to life.
It's also surprisingly strong stuff, with explicit sequences of torture and black masses which are still tough to bear even today.Danish director Benjamin Christensen elicits strong performances from his cast members, particularly from Maren Pedersen who gives a haunting turn as the condemned witch, and the 1920s-era special effects are a lot of fun; strange how the flying broomstick scene looks better nowadays than the lamentable CGI of the Harry Potter franchise.
Burroughs, the original silent version is more pleasing to watch for me, mostly because of the classical music being more fitting to the film than the hipster's jazz as background music (which I'm sure was popular in the time of 1968).
As far as documentaries go, 'Häxan' might not be the most enlightening film out there, particularly with the way it blurs Satanism and witchcraft together, but between the intense witch trial section of the movie and several weird shots of witches engaged in rituals with Satan, the project has enough going its favour to rate as an undeniable curio.
It actually stands as a sort of 7-part documentary of sorts about witchcraft in the Middle Ages, leading up to some striking parallels that film-maker Benjamin Christensen manages to draw with conditions in his own day (the film being made in 1922.) It's a silent movie, of course, and quite lavish by the standards of 1922.
The film then offers a dramatization of several aspects of witchcraft - the supposed activities of witches that drew them to attention, the actions of the authorities (and, especially, church authorities) in putting them on trial with all of the excesses involved, including a truly unsettling look at various methods of torture that were used to force confessions out of these poor unfortunates.
Finally, Christensen brings us up to "present day" 1922, and makes some interesting connections between the things that caused many to be condemned for witchcraft in earlier centuries and the condition known at the time as "hysteria" - pointing out effectively that not only were the condemned witches innocent, many of them were probably mentally ill.
The film is a documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of different ways, from slide shows to dramatised events of real-life events, up to the early twentieth century.
This is something of an overlooked classic, mostly known only to film buffs and historians, but it is such a superb work of dark imagination that it surely deserves to be better known and seen more widely.The film doesn't start too well, with its first chapter devoted to a lecture which is both dry and dull, but subsequent chapters offers us scenes from the history of witchcraft that are filled with incredibly detailed and atmospheric detail.
It is amazing how so many of the modern documentaries available on Netflix strive to hold my attention yet something that's almost 100 years old still strikes a chord as to its relevance today.Haxan helps disperse the notion that silent films from the bygone era are but only an oddity when it comes to showcasing real life on the screen.
Part documentary, part surreal horror film, "Haxan" purports to show the history of witchcraft throughout the world, up to the then modern era.
Finally, the final part connects feudal stories of witches and demonic possession with modern conditions such as sleepwalking, kleptomania, or "hysteria." While the historical information presented in "Haxan" is fascinating, and sometimes horrifying, the movie is most valuable for its striking and surreal horror imagery.
Häxan: Witchcraft Through The AgesIf magic were still considered to be witchcraft than Las Vegas magic acts would be nothing more than glitzy illusionists burning at the stake.Unfortunately, this documentary doesn't depict David Copperfield on a spit.Commencing with a narrated exposition on humanities first held beliefs towards demonology, witchcraft and Hell, this chronicle then centers on the myths surrounding Satan and witches during medieval times.Next, a parable about an old crone accused of witchcraft serves as an example of the legalities/intimidation involved with a charge of sorcery.The allegory concludes with a contemporary take on the middle-age methods for dealing with witchcraft.
Haxan (The Witch) is probably not the title to seek out if you are new to watching silent film as it lacks what modern viewers might call a coherent narrative.
This is a sort of a study of psychological disorders that dramatizes cases of "witchcraft through the ages" (as the film is also known), including the 17th century demoniac possessions among nuns in a Loudon convent, later seriously remade in Jerzy Kawalerowicz' "Mother Joanna of the Angels" (1961), and grotesquely staged in Ken Russell's "The Devils" (1971.) In the end, though, these parts are more riveting than the real images of emotional disorders, and they mine the pretended scientific approach..
The film follows a documentary structure, but the Swedish director implements lots of different ways of telling his story, which ensures that the film never becomes dull or mundane and offers more than just a commentary on witchcraft through the ages.
The documentary follows the subjects of spell casting, witch trials and wrongful accusation, and while I can't say that I'm now an expert on witchcraft; this film offers a fairly good education.I saw this film on a video released by Redemption films in the UK, which isn't the same version released by Criterion in the USA.
The storyboards included in the Redemption version ensure that it's more like a silent film, although Haxan does feature a lot of visuals that are surprising given the time that the film was made.
Christensen decorates his film with some great sequences, which include devils, skeletal horses and witches performing witchcraft and these aids help the director to fully implement the ideas of the plot.
Benjamin Christensen directed, wrote, and even acted (as both the devil, *and* Christ) in this appropriately bleak, really creepy docu/ horror, about magic, Satanism, witchcraft, the occult, legends, folklore, and superstitions, filled with grotesquely beautiful images, and deep red tinting, for even creepier sweat-inducing tension and unease.Paving the way for the Mondo films decades later, its surprising bursts of nudity, violence, and torture, especially for a film from this time period, is all the more frightening and unsettling.
Fictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in modern Europe.Two versions of this film are floating around, or if you have the Criterion edition (which you should), you can watch either of them on the same disc.
Sounds like a plan the conservatives would heartily embrace.It was interesting to see what is also most likely the first filmed instance of good cop - bad cop.I found the film to be what I would consider to be very spicy for 1922, the special effects were amazing considering what was available at the time, and the story certainly kept my interest throughout.I also watched the 1967 remake with William Burroughs narrating and found it to be easier to watch and the jazz score was certainly better than the typical music used in silent films..
'Häxan', often going under the translated title, 'Witchcraft through the Ages' is a gloriously bizarre film from the early days of cinema which documents the history of witch-cults in the Middle Ages and the church-led inquisitions that hunted them.
A wry sense of humor -- if that is what it is --would also make this film similar to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.In any event, it is an interesting look at early horrorand has some very atmospheric scenes employing good FX --all the more impressive because they were done in 1922,long before computer graphics..
"Häxan" was an ambitious film, and although it doesn't work entirely, it's a landmark achievement.(Note: The 1968 condensed version "Witchcraft Through the Ages", with narration by William S.
Häxan belongs to a time when the frontiers between a documentary film and fiction weren't clear yet; so director Benjamin Christensen had the freedom to dramatise his history of witchcraft using actors and creating a plot.
Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages is one of those films that you have to ask yourself, what the hell did I just watch?
If you're interested in old school silent horror films about witchcraft, I highly recommend HAXAN!!!.