Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1943 film Day Of Wrath (Vredens dag), adapted from Hans Wiers-Jenssens' novel, Day Of Wrath, by Dreyer, is an earlier, better version of the issues tackled in Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, because, even though the film was made during the Nazi occupation of Denmark, and there are obvious parallels to be drawn between that and the film's narrative, it is never as psychologically obvious nor melodramatic as Miller's later allegory on McCarthyism. This is never made more clear than at the film's end, where the psychologically fragile Anne (Lisbeth Movin) is betrayed by her horrid mother-in-law, her lover, and her own psyche, and actually comes to believe in her own guilt of being a witch, for wishing the death of her aged husband.
The whole film is also a more realistic depiction of self-delusion than Miller's play, as the 17th Century Danish Inquisitors who torture, maim, and kill in the name of their beliefs show how easily good intentions can become twisted. Anne is clearly the central figure, and her rise and fall, from shy dour hausfrau of old Reverend Absalon Pedersson (Thorkild Roose), to energetic vibrant lover of his son, Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye), who is about the same age as her, and returns to the home after years abroad, to denounced, deluded, and subservient victim of her wicked mother-in-law, Merete (Sigrid Neiiendam), is the center of the film's drama and emotion.
Day Of Wrath is one of the most masterful black and white films ever made, and the use of shadow by Dreyer and cinematographer Karl Andersson is stunning. Only other Dreyer films come close to being as effective in the use of such as this film is . Day Of Wrath is one of those films that is possibly difficult to judge by modern standards, yet if it is not clearly a great film, the way his earlier Vampyr is, it's only because it is not a genre work, like that film, and thus not subject to a more delimited horizon. In many ways, these same issues would be tackled a decade and a half later, in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, a more modern and complex work, yet one which never quite hits the visceral peaks this film does. And, comparisons to other great works of art are never to be dismissed lightly. Neither is Day Of Wrath.
The whole film is also a more realistic depiction of self-delusion than Miller's play, as the 17th Century Danish Inquisitors who torture, maim, and kill in the name of their beliefs show how easily good intentions can become twisted. Anne is clearly the central figure, and her rise and fall, from shy dour hausfrau of old Reverend Absalon Pedersson (Thorkild Roose), to energetic vibrant lover of his son, Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye), who is about the same age as her, and returns to the home after years abroad, to denounced, deluded, and subservient victim of her wicked mother-in-law, Merete (Sigrid Neiiendam), is the center of the film's drama and emotion.
Day Of Wrath is one of the most masterful black and white films ever made, and the use of shadow by Dreyer and cinematographer Karl Andersson is stunning. Only other Dreyer films come close to being as effective in the use of such as this film is . Day Of Wrath is one of those films that is possibly difficult to judge by modern standards, yet if it is not clearly a great film, the way his earlier Vampyr is, it's only because it is not a genre work, like that film, and thus not subject to a more delimited horizon. In many ways, these same issues would be tackled a decade and a half later, in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, a more modern and complex work, yet one which never quite hits the visceral peaks this film does. And, comparisons to other great works of art are never to be dismissed lightly. Neither is Day Of Wrath.