Vredens dag (1943) - film review

In the early 17th century, Denmark is gripped by fear of witchcraft.  An old woman appeals to Anne, the young wife of a parson, to hide her, but she is caught, tortured and burnt for alleged sorcery.  When the parson’s son, Martin, returns home, he is drawn to his alluring stepmother.  Anne’s love for Martin becomes so intense that she begins to wish that her husband were dead.   When the parson dies suddenly, his harsh mother has no qualms about denouncing Anne as a witch…

Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer is renowned for his beautifully austere-looking films about faith and human suffering.  A decade after his celebrated horror film Vampyr (1931), he made what is regarded by many as his greatest film, the work that is most representative of Dreyer the man and Dreyer the film director.  Set during the Danish witch trials of the 17th century, Day of Wrath shows us a community that is gripped by fear – fear of being branded a witch and being brutally killed on the one hand, fear of being corrupted by the Devil and sent to Hell for eternity on the other.  The film was made at the time of the Nazi occupation of Denmark during the Second World War, and it is not hard to see the parallels between the present and past realities.

Day of Wrath forms a loose trilogy with Dreyer’s two other great works which touch on religious themes – The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Ordet  (1955).  What the three films have in common is a tacit belief in the strength of the human spirit to endure any calamity, through or in spite of religion.   Day of Wrath is ostensibly the darkest, most pessimistic of the three films, but Dreyer still manages to convey the sense that mortal suffering is transient, that human feeling – embodied in the trinity of love, hope and faith – is eternal and will ultimately triumph.  All three films show religion in a deeply ironic, perhaps subversive, light.  The subtext is that religion (or indeed any misguided belief) is a great danger for mankind, whereas true faith will be his salvation.  The consequences of blind adherence to religious instruction are all too apparent in Day of Wrath: what folly will man not prosecute with a clear conscience in the name of religion (or any other form of ideology)?   By contrast, Dreyer portrays true faith as the noblest of human characteristics: the will to transcend the here and now and see, amid all the chaos and turmoil of our earthly lives, some great, unifying purpose that binds us together, rather than dividing us.

Dreyer has acquired something of a reputation for Puritanism in his cinema.  This stems more from the style of his films, which are rigorously austere, with minimalist sets, stark black and white photography, and limited movement.  Far from being puritanical, Day of Wrath is shocking in its portrayal of human baseness – grotesque physical brutality and unbridled female sexual desire.  For such an intensely spiritual film, it’s surprising how much Dreyer focuses on the nastier, earthier side of human experience, and in a way that is disturbingly matter-of-fact.  The horror of the torture sequences and subsequent burning of an alleged witch are amongst the grimmest images ever seen in cinema history, yet there is no suggestion that Dreyer is condemning what he shows us.  Likewise, the obvious attempts by the parson’s attractive young wife to seduce her stepson are portrayed with a realism that is breathtakingly stark; so brazen is the woman that the spectator is coerced into mentally labelling her as a witch, even though we know that she is merely succumbing to a natural human instinct.  So powerful is Dreyer’s imagery that we cannot help but see things from his protagonists’ point of view.  On more than one occasion, we are practically driven to think in a similar way to those who made an industry of burning old women in the 1600s.  If “witch” is meant to be a metaphor for “Jew”, that’s a truly disturbing thought. The message is clear: be very careful what you choose to believe in.

© James Travers 2006

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