Häxan (1922) on Netflix
NR19221h 45mDocumentaryFantasyHistory
A silent essay traces witchcraft from pagan rites through the Middle Ages, staging Satan's visits. When a printer named Jesper dies, his wife Anna asks the inquisitors to try the weaver Maria.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.6/1019,547 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
The film mixes a lecture with dramatized scenes. Photographs of statuary, paintings and woodcuts present medieval notions of demons and of the shape of the universe, and models show how the age pictured the solar system and hell. Then come scenes: Satan draws a sleeping woman from her husband's bed and disturbs a group of monks; a customer buys a love potion from a sorceress named Karna; Apelone dreams of a castle where the coins Satan gives her will not stay in her hand. In the Middle Ages a printer, Jesper, dies, and his family accuses the old weaver Maria of causing the death. His wife Anna goes to the traveling inquisitors and asks them to try Maria. The film holds that superstition and mental illness, not sorcery, drove the witch purges.
Cast
- Emmy Schønfeldas Marie, the Seamstress
- Wilhelmine Henriksenas Apelone / A Poor Old Woman
- Elisabeth Christensenas En ældre bondekone
- Maren Pedersenas Heksen
- Johannes Andersenas Heksedommer
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Häxan (1922)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Censors in Germany, France and the United States objected to what they considered Häxan's graphic depictions of torture, nudity and sexual perversion, and to its anti-clericalism, even though the film got a positive reception in Denmark and Sweden.
- Demons in Häxan were played by actors in special-effects makeup, and the occult scenes used puppetry and stop-motion animation; superimposition showed witches flying over villages and having out-of-body experiences, while reverse motion made coins seem to fly from a table.
- Häxan's total cost for Svensk Film, counting the refurbishment of the Astra Film Studio, reached between 1.5 and 2 million kronor, making it the most expensive Scandinavian silent film in history.
- Benjamin Christensen and cinematographer Johan Ankerstjerne shot Häxan only at night or on a closed set, in order to keep the film's dark hue.
- After finding a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum in a Berlin bookshop, Benjamin Christensen spent two years, from 1919 to 1921, studying manuals, illustrations and treatises on witches and witch-hunting, and printed a lengthy bibliography in the film's original playbill.
- Häxan's Swedish premiere used an accompaniment compiled from pre-existing compositions whose details are now lost, while the Copenhagen premiere score was played by a 50-piece orchestra and combined pieces by Schubert, Gluck and Beethoven.
- After its release, Häxan acquired a cult following among surrealists, who greatly admired the silent film's subversion of the cultural norms of the time.
