Review of Häxan

In 1999, The Blair Witch Project became one of the most successful independent films ever made. A major factor in its success was how its directors blurred the line between dramatization and documentary, leaving many moviegoers unsure whether or not it was real. What’s even less known is that this concept was done nearly 80 years prior with the Swedish film Häxan.

Imagine it’s 1922 in a packed theater, when the flickering projector illuminates the screen. The audience then witnesses two hours of footage that includes Satanic rituals, nudity, fellatio, implied masturbation, desecration of religious icons, violence against the dead and unborn, and human torture.

Suddenly The Blair Witch Project seems a bit tame in comparison.

Of course, the similarity between the two films isn’t coincidence. The creators of The Blair Witch Project even named their production company Häxan Films. They’re simply the latest in a long line of filmmakers that director Benjamin Christensen has influenced.

Although it certainly had its controversial parts (not surprisingly, it was either banned or heavily edited even in Europe), Christensen didn’t aim to be sensationalistic. In fact, Häxan is a fairly honest, serious examination of the social and religious attitudes towards perceived witchcraft through history. His thesis was one that wasn’t widely considered until the latter half of the century: that many of the victims of the European witch hunts were individuals suffering from psychological disorders or were simply in poor social standing. Witch hunts were the religious manifestation of what we would now call eugenics.

The film’s content is divided into three categories: dramatization of the Middle Ages, stills from the Malleus Maleficarum, and moving models. The Malleus Maleficarum, perhaps one of the most accurate documents on the mechanics of witch trials, provided the material that formed the dramatization filmed by Christensen. In those sections, different scenarios were presented in which an individual would be accused of witchcraft and inevitably be put to death.

Near the beginning of the film, two doctors standing over a corpse that they were about to perform an autopsy on pray for forgiveness on the basis that they only want to discover the causes of diseases. They are found out by a young woman and we see her running through the village alerting others of the black magic being performed. Their fates are not difficult to predict.

In a longer sequence that spans most of the movie, an old, decrepit woman named Maria (Maren Pederson) goes door to door and begs for food. In what proves to be poor timing, she comes upon the wife of a man who had just died. The wife (Karen Winther) suspects that the swiftness of his death was due to witchcraft. They bring in a diviner who blesses a hot cast of molten lead over the husband’s corpse and then pours the lead into a bucket of water. He takes out the contorted lump and “reads” that the husband was, indeed, killed by witchcraft. The wife immediately suspects Maria and takes her case to the local monastery where the monks seize the old lady and proceed to torture her.

There is also an aside concerning witch-mania within the ranks of the clergy. Christensen points out that even monks and nuns were susceptible to hysteria. One monk is praying over the Bible when the Devil pops up and flicks his tongue menacingly at the man. Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne have clearly met their match. In another, a young nun is clubbed by the Devil and then proceeds to induce the entire nunnery into a bout of dancing hysteria that resembles a Satanic Sister Act.

Those looking for influences of Häxan in 20th century films needn’t look far. The opening scene has men bringing in bundles of sticks with various body parts hidden in them for potions. This wold be another nod from the Blair Witch. There is a scene in Häxan where the witches make their famous flight on broomsticks through the night air to join the Sabbat. Those familiar with Disney’s Fantasia may recognize the similarities of this with the Night on Bald Mountain sequence. Shaffer’s The Wicker Man follows Häxan in spirit by remaining faithful to the culturally-distinct rituals and traditions that frequently fell under the accusation of witchcraft. The ending credits also thank Lord Summerisle for the use of his isle as a means to once again blur that line.

Another source of influence is the cinematography by Johan Ankerstjerne. Desiring to create the perfect atmosphere for the live sequences, Häxan was filmed almost entirely at night–a task that was unheard of in its time due to the insensitivity to light with early silver nitrate stock. Häxan also displays some of the earliest uses of stop-animation and reverse-filming. In one scene, Maria wakes up in a castle completely covered in gold coins. She collects as many as she can, only to watch them slip out of her fingers, slide across the floor, and exit out the door. Then, a gremlin breaks through the door and steps through, much to her horror. Fans of Jan Svankmajer and Jean Cocteau will find this film a worthwhile study.

Towards the end, the film veers back into seriousness when Christensen makes a parallel between the treatment of so-called witches and the psychologically disturbed of his day. Remember, this was the era of mental asylums complete with water hoses, ice-pick lobotomies, and other barbarisms. Mental instability, much like witchcraft, was seen as being due to moral weakness. Hospitals were often no different than prisons. In pointing out the fine line between religious fervor and lunacy, Christensen wanted to inform a public of its past crimes in hopes of stopping present ones.

For many years, Häxan was only available in limited release or heavily edited for content. One American cut titled Witchcraft Through the Ages was fairly popular for its jazz ensemble and beat-artist William S. Burroughs as the narrator. Criterion eventually answered quite a few dreams by getting the original cut, restoring the print, adding the intended tinting, recording a new orchestral score based upon the original, including the Burroughs cut, and inserting the final intertitles written by Christensen. As is frequently the case, Criterion goes above and beyond other companies to do great classics the justice that they deserve. For those that want to see the film that influenced countless filmmakers across multiple genres for nearly a century, Häxan is worth every penny.