Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages

● Haxan, la sorcellerie à travers les âges, 1922 · Potemkine Films, Agnès b. DVD.

Häxan (English title: The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is

a 1922 Swedish/Danish silent film written and directed by Benjamin

Christensen. Based partly on Christensen's study of the Malleus

Maleficarum, a 15th century German guide for inquisitors, Häxan is

a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases

and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts.

The film was made as a documentary but contains dramatized

sequences that are comparable to horror films. With Christensen's

meticulous recreation of medieval scenes and the lengthy production

period, the film was the most expensive Scandinavian silent film ever

made, costing nearly two million Swedish krona. Although it won

acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United

States and heavily censored in other countries for what were

considered at that time graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and

sexual perversion.

· Plot:

The first part of the film is a scholarly dissertation on the

appearances of demons and witches in primitive and medieval

culture. A number of photographs of statuary, paintings, and

woodcuts are used as demonstrative pieces. In addition, several

large scale models are employed to demonstrate medieval

concepts of the structure of the solar system and the commonly

accepted depiction of Hell.The second part of the film is a series

of vignettes theatrically demonstrating medieval superstition and

beliefs concerning witchcraft.

These include Satan (played by Christensen himself) tempting a

sleeping woman away from her husband's bed and terrorizing a

group of monks. Also shown is a woman purchasing a love potion

from a supposed witch, and a sequence showing a supposed witch

dreaming of flying through the air and attending a witches' gathering.

The third part of the film is a long narrative broken up into several

parts. Set in the Middle Ages, it concerns an old woman accused of

witchcraft by a dying man's family. The narrative is used to

demonstrate the treatment of suspected witches by the religious

authorities of the time. The old woman, after being tortured, admits

to heavy involvement in witchcraft, including detailed descriptions of

a Witches' Sabbath, even going so far as to "name" other supposed

witches, including two of the women in the dying man's household.

Eventually, the dying man's wife is arrested as a witch when she

admits that she falsely accused the old woman of witchcraft.

The final part of the film seeks to demonstrate how the superstitions

of old are better understood now. Christensen seeks to make the

claim that most who were accused of witchcraft were mentally ill,

and in modern times, we recognize that people are not possessed

by the devil but suffering from a disease. His case revolves around

vignettes about a somnambulist and a kleptomaniac, the implication

being that these behaviors would have been thought of as

demonically-influenced in medieval times whereas modern times

recognizes them as psychological ailments.

· Fonts: Wikipedia