Master of the House (1925)
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer

Film Review

Carl Theodor Dreyer is a director who is usually associated with austere, often intensely bleak dramas about human suffering and spiritual renewal.  He is not as well known for his comedies and so Master of the House, a rare excursion into farce, will come as something of a surprise to those who have based their assessment of this, the one true master of Danish cinema, on such films as Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1929) and Ordet (1951).  The only apparent connection between this film and Dreyer's better known works is a thematic link, its depiction of the subjugation of women by men.  The difference is that here the women finally get the upper hand and a harmony between the two sexes is achieved, an unlikely outcome that is vaguely reminiscent of the miracle that we see in Ordet. 

Adapted from a play by the renowned Danish screenwriter Svend Rindom, Master of the House is a sublimely crafted morality piece, with a feminist (or, more accurately, pro-women's rights) subtext that is several decades ahead of its time.  It could so easily have been a preachy melodrama but Dreyer avoids the pitfall of moralising didacticism and instead delivers a film with genuine human feeling, a film that is both poignant and humorous.  There is even a Lubitsch-like verve and playfulness in some of the film's later sequences, particularly those where the tyrannical Viktor finally submits to the iron will of his dominatrix nanny.

Master of the House is surprising in other ways.  It has a striking neo-realist touch, which is remarkable when you consider that the film was made at time when virtually all filmmakers preferred a more stylised approach, to compensate for the absence of recorded dialogue.  Dreyer is again ahead of his time in his striving for authenticity.  Originally, he had wanted to shoot the entire film in a real two-room apartment.  When this proved to be impractical, he insisted that the studio sets be constructed as a functional replica of a real apartment, complete with adjacent four-walled rooms and running water.  Dreyer eschews the stylisation favoured by his contemporaries and achieves a naturalistic feel that is virtually unique at this time.

Dreyer is also to be noted on his use of close-ups, another technique that very few filmmakers of this era had learned to exploit fully.  Rather than require his actors to express themselves in a theatrical manner, through exaggerated facial and body gestures, Dreyer uses the close-up to achieve the same effect in a more naturalistic manner.   In this film, he shows just how effective a carefully composed close-up of an actor's face can be in conveying a character's feelings, without dialogue.  In Mathilde Nielsen (who plays the aforementioned elderly dominatrix), Dreyer had an excellent subject for this purpose, her penetrating eyes, curled lips and mocking smile telling us far more than could every be expressed through reams of scripted dialogue.

Although it is so often overlooked today, Master of the House is assuredly one of Carl Theodor Dreyer's great achievements.  The film was particularly successful in France and helped Dreyer to find financial backing for his next, and most ambitious film, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.  This, Dreyer's best known film, could not be more different from Master of the House, and yet it shows a natural progression in the director's technique.  The psychological realism that Dreyer achieved in Master of the House and his previous film Mikaël (1924) reaches devastating heights in his Joan of Arc study, principally through what is arguably cinema's most inspired use of the close-up.

Film Synopsis

Ida Frandsen's life is one of unceasing drudgery.  From the crack of dawn to late in the evening, she is busy with the multitude of household chores that need to be done to make life as tolerable as possible for her husband Viktor and their children.  But far from being grateful for his wife's endless toil, Viktor treats her with contempt.  He scolds her for the slightest fault and fails to see the sacrifices she makes to keep him comfortable.  From time to time, Vikor's former nanny, Mads, comes in to give Ida a helping hand, but this does little for Viktor's humour, since he has grown to loathe the interfering old woman.  Mads is appalled by the way that Viktor abuses his wife and decides it is time he was taught a lesson.  She and Ida's mother persuade Ida that she must take a break, otherwise she risks damaging her health.  Reluctantly, the worn out Ida agrees and moves back in with her mother, accepting Mads' assurance that she will take care of her husband and the children.  Viktor is outraged when he learns that his wife has abandoned him but has a change of heart when he learns that Ida genuinely is ill.  With Ida away recuperating at a rest home, Viktor has no choice but to put up with the humiliations that his former nanny metes out to him with an almost malignant glee.  Mads is pitiless, having resolved to give Viktor a taste of his own medicine...