Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

samkoseoglu That title, up there, is not a sentence to vitiate movie's artistic sense of creation or aesthetic concerns, as it puts this great narration into something creative and aesthetic naturally, that which we call art. What the title explains is simply the social assistive part of the movie as Christensen himself is aware of the fact that society needs explanations and corrections about some important matters still affecting people's lives negatively as shown with an exemplary scene describing old actress' fear and delusive visions. Directing method is expressive and presentation of certain tools are very clear and explanatory visually; therefore, it is not hard to follow the scenes.The narration helps to compare scenes from past and present. For a time period like we have now some points could be seen repeated over and over with explanations, but for its own time, and for the great majority of today's audience I think, they are absolutely efficacious. One can feel Christensen's concerns and can easily empathize with him throughout the movie. The most important part of this movie, which can be categorized as a documentary, is that it never loses it dramatic flavour even if it tries to serve a certain purpose which is providing knowledge about people's ignorance, narrow mindedness throughout the centuries and its fatal consequences. With this power art creates an influence to persuade people of its arguments with artistic, dramatic, and creative sense of demonstration unlike platitudes of other narrations like history, philosophy, or science.

calvinnme If there is one thing I come away with in this film it is this quote near the beginning - "The belief in sorcery and witchcraft is a result of naive notions about the mystery of the universe." The film is presented documentary style with the first portion being about the beliefs of the ancients in regard to sorcery, just so nobody believes that all of this came completely from the Roman Catholic church. It is interesting that there are such commonalities among the ancients and those of the middle ages. They had similar physical forms for demons and believed that sorcerers made people ill or were responsible for certain catastrophes. They never say so, but I imagine this was one way to keep people in line politically speaking. If the townspeople blame sorcerers for their dying cattle or a huge fire they are less likely to revolt against the authorities. Remember the Catholic church and the kings of the Middle Ages were in close alliance.The dramatic portion is about the last two thirds of the film in which the inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages is shown along with instruments of torture indicating that it would be easy to get someone to confess anything given such devices. It was much like the House Un American Activities Committee of the early 1950's. If you were called a Communist the only way to clear yourself was to name a bunch of other people as Communists. Likewise, witches under torture were forced to name a bunch of other people as witches, they were tortured, and so on. The traveling monks who did this work would thus leave a town after burning half the women to the stake and be able to say "Wow! It's a good thing we showed up! Look how many witches you had and never even knew it!" The film jumps to the present and says that modern science has shown that many of the symptoms of witchcraft - such as lack of sensitivity to pain - have been found to be the result of hysteria and thus has a psychological component, not a demonic one. Funny though how Christensen makes all of these hysterical people out to be women, in particular women who have lost somebody from WWI and turned to shoplifting or some other antisocial or compulsive behavior because they can't fathom going through life without the person they lost. I cut Christensen some slack on this because this film was made almost 100 years ago, plus he does show that it is women who still suffer now (in 1922) from intolerance - locked away in asylums - rather than burned at the stake as they were in the middle ages. And he encourages charity to the poor and misunderstood.The only thing I'm not sure about is the veracity of the film when it comes to the creative methods of torture. I've heard some people say that many of these devices came from a museum that simply made some of the devices up to increase sensationalism, and thus attendance and ticket sales. Still it's a fascinating piece of film work and I'd recommend it. Just realize that it is creepy enough you might not want to watch it late at night when you are alone.

Leofwine_draca HAXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES is the famous Swedish/Danish documentary exploring the history of witchcraft through to the modern day. It's a stark and unsettling film packed with the kind of horrific imagery that has since become clichéd in the cinema, and yet some scenes retain their brutal power and feel surprisingly fresh and terrifying.The documentary begins on a slow note with lots of description and not much in the way of life, but after a time the staged dramatisations begin and this is where HAXAN comes to life. The whole "witch hunt" subject has been done to death, yet the storyline which plays out here is never less than engrossing. It's also surprisingly strong stuff, with explicit sequences of torture and black masses which are still tough to bear even today.Danish director Benjamin Christensen elicits strong performances from his cast members, particularly from Maren Pedersen who gives a haunting turn as the condemned witch, and the 1920s-era special effects are a lot of fun; strange how the flying broomstick scene looks better nowadays than the lamentable CGI of the Harry Potter franchise. It's interesting to watch how political sentiments - pro-feminism, anti-religion - creep into the finished film. HAXAN is a must for both horror fans and cinema fans in general.

mukava991 "Haxan," Benjamin Christensen's docudrama about the history of witchcraft in Europe, remains relevant more than 90 years after it was made because the subject is still alive in the public imagination and the artistry evident in some of the scenes transcends eras. The first part is taken up by a ponderous slide show, mostly of woodcuts, alternating with explanatory titles; in some cases an off-screen hand holds a pencil point to a detail of the image for emphasis. In silent cinema, of course, there can be no narration, so the title insertions take up a lot of running time. Once the introductory show-and-tell is over, we are treated to vividly photographed and sensitively acted dramatizations, mostly set in medieval times, of actual or suspected witches in action: shriveled old women who concoct potions from such unsavory ingredients as dead men's fingers or various animal parts; or innocent women who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and are falsely accused, then, under torture, falsely accuse others. The devil (played by Christensen himself) is depicted as a leering pointy-eared bald man with spindly clawed hands who is fond of perpetrating such outrages as sticking out his tongue, holding nocturnal orgiastic dance parties in forests, desecrating holy sites or bewitching unsuspecting nuns. The close-ups of vulnerable, aged women under interrogation are unsettling. The later films of Dreyer, particularly "The Passion of Jeanne D'Arc" and "Day of Wrath," come to mind. Sometimes the director breaks the flow by showing an actress on set toying with a thumbscrew prop, or by inserting titles describing what various cast members thought privately about witches and demons. Toward the end Christensen makes a didactic comparison of behaviors or characteristics which in former times would have been considered witchery but in modern times are given different labels: "materialism" (fondness for jewelry, for instance) or "mental illness," which at the time of this film was treated with hydrotherapy (showers) but in olden days could be considered evidence of demonic possession and result in burning at the stake.