Day of Wrath 35mm | Pantheon
Tickets
On sale viff.org
About
“Carl Th. Dreyer was a modest man, as were his sitting room and, later, his grave. Carl Th. Dreyer possessed the pure heart and natural humility of the passionate individual. Carl Th. Dreyer’s passion was FILM.” — Lars von Trier
Denmark’s first great filmmaker, Carl Theodor Dreyer worked between 1919 and 1964. though sadly he only completed four features in the last 30 years of his life. Each of these films (Vampyr; Day of Wrath; Ordet; Gertrud) is considered a masterpiece, as is his silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. Many of his films (like Lars on Trier’s) focus on the persecution of women. In Dreyer’s case this is invariably in the service of social critique, contrasting female sexuality and power with the repressive strictures of the Church.
In Day of Wrath, Anna, the young second wife of a well-respected but much older pastor, falls in love with her stepson when he returns to their small seventeenth-century village. Stepping outside the bounds of the village’s harsh moral code has disastrous results. Exquisitely photographed and passionately acted, Day of Wrath remains an intense, unforgettable experience. Made during the Nazi Occupation of Denmark, it has been interpreted as an anti-fascist allegory.
Sunday’s Pantheon screening will feature a 15-minute introduction by a local film scholar and be followed by an audience talkback.
Dreyer’s impious, anarchic drama is a cry of rage at abusive authority, whether political, familial, religious, or moral; he celebrates erotic love as the natural order of things.
Richard Brody, New Yorker
Astonishing in its artistically informed period re-creation as well as its hypnotic mise en scene, it challenges the viewer by suggesting at times that witchcraft isn’t so much an illusion as an activity produced by intolerance.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
A stark, brooding treatment of adultery, incest, and murder, an elemental tragedy not so far from a James M. Cain triangle, albeit shot so as to deliberately evoke the Dutch masters.
J Hoberman, Village Voice
Denmark’s first great filmmaker, Carl Theodor Dreyer worked between 1919 and 1964. though sadly he only completed four features in the last 30 years of his life. Each of these films (Vampyr; Day of Wrath; Ordet; Gertrud) is considered a masterpiece, as is his silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. Many of his films (like Lars on Trier’s) focus on the persecution of women. In Dreyer’s case this is invariably in the service of social critique, contrasting female sexuality and power with the repressive strictures of the Church.
In Day of Wrath, Anna, the young second wife of a well-respected but much older pastor, falls in love with her stepson when he returns to their small seventeenth-century village. Stepping outside the bounds of the village’s harsh moral code has disastrous results. Exquisitely photographed and passionately acted, Day of Wrath remains an intense, unforgettable experience. Made during the Nazi Occupation of Denmark, it has been interpreted as an anti-fascist allegory.
Sunday’s Pantheon screening will feature a 15-minute introduction by a local film scholar and be followed by an audience talkback.
Dreyer’s impious, anarchic drama is a cry of rage at abusive authority, whether political, familial, religious, or moral; he celebrates erotic love as the natural order of things.
Richard Brody, New Yorker
Astonishing in its artistically informed period re-creation as well as its hypnotic mise en scene, it challenges the viewer by suggesting at times that witchcraft isn’t so much an illusion as an activity produced by intolerance.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
A stark, brooding treatment of adultery, incest, and murder, an elemental tragedy not so far from a James M. Cain triangle, albeit shot so as to deliberately evoke the Dutch masters.
J Hoberman, Village Voice
