Haxan
Straddling the line between documentary and full-blown horror film, Benjamin Christensen’s infamous silent film, “Haxan,” is famous among cineastes who have discovered the film via The Criterion Collection and delving deep into the realm of silent cinema. However, watching the film again, the film deserves to be better known among contemporary horror fans in general; true, the film lacks the visceral thrills of most shock-and-awe films we see now, but the artistry will resonate for anyone who appreciates the wicked suspense of films such as “Insidious,” “Drag Me to Hell,” “The Exorcist,” or “The Shining.”
Though a second, shorter version of the film exists (and was released along with the original under the title, “Witchcraft Through the Ages,” by Criterion), this review will look at the original, 1922 film, which is the only version I’ve seen. 1922; especially for fans of horror films, that year should resonate, as it was the year another infamous horror film was released– F.W. Murnau’s masterpiece, “Nosferatu.” In tone, however, “Haxan” has more in common with an earlier classic, the 1919 film, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” As with that film, Christensen’s film deals with paranoia and psychological explanations for tragedy, albeit in a more subversive and direct manner than Robert Weine’s film does. Split up into seven chapters, Christensen begins with a “history” of sorts, documenting several beliefs held over the centuries that were considered to be the work of sorcery, as well as ideas of how the universe was shaped; they had some crazy ideas.
After this setup, Christensen tells his tales of witchcraft and Satanism through the ages through a series of six vignettes, each one becoming more vulgar and unnerving than the last. From a visual standpoint alone, the images are disturbing and unforgettable, but the music also plays an important role. We hear strains of “Swan Lake” and other pieces (including one that was used in the classic “Buffy” episode, “Hush”), arranged by film music scholar Gillian Anderson to create a powerful symphony of horror that, in many ways, surpasses the likes of “Nosferatu” and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” People were worried about evil and the Devil being contained in the celluloid of “The Exorcist?” Christensen’s epic seems to have been created from the depths of Hell itself, especially during chapters 4 and 5, when the accusation of an elder woman for being a witch during the 1400s leads to a chain of events that will no doubt remind one of the stories of the Salem Witch trials, not to mention a sequence of Satanic perversity that rivals the work of Christensen’s fellow Dane, Hieronymus Bosch. This sequence in particular contains characters so theatrical and grotesque than one wonders if the makers of this year’s superb horror film, “Insidious,” watched it for inspiration.
As I’m sure you’ve gathered, Christensen’s film was intended to terrify, and it remains fully capable of doing so almost 90 years later. But Christensen’s points are less intended to jolt audiences emotionally as they are intellectually. You see, “Haxan” was born out of a study that Christensen made of how religious superstitions and a general misunderstanding of mental illness has led to such witch hunts throughout the years. In that way, Christensen’s movie exists for the purpose of social commentary and satire, and make no mistake, “Haxan” is diabolically funny, especially when Christensen shows us torture tolls that have been used over the years by inquisitors, and even tries them of real people. There are times when he teases us with the results, but other times, he shows us, as when a nun is given a spiked belt to wear, and hallucinates that the convent has been overrun by the Devil.
Most powerful of all is the last chapter, in which Christensen makes his points on mental illness with real examples, and real people. The music is poignant. The performances are emotional. And the visuals are some of the most memorable in the film, as Christensen moves from the fictional horror of the first 90 minutes into a more disturbing, and enlightening, look at real-life dangers that plagued society at that time. These moments alone make “Haxan” one of the most important and intriguing films in all of world cinema.
