(Review originally written at 5 July 2010)
Carl Theodor Dreyer was one of the most visual orientated directors that ever lived. His movies are often a delight to watch, due to its visuals but I also admit that I'm not a great fan of all of his work. He's praised by lots of people for his well known works but his movies are certainly lacking some of the needs that are required for a movie. His movies just aren't the best paced ones and they are often overlong and slow, with just not an awful lot happening. He masks this greatly with the visual style and quality of the movies but you can only compensate that much. His movies definitely always have some big pros and cons in them, while this movie does however luckily has far more pros.
This movie also has the great benefit that it has a great story in it. It's about faith, religion, life and death, science versus faith and whatever more discussions and different perspectives of things this movie brings along. In that regard this movie perhaps feels more like an Ingmar Bergman movie than a Carl Theodor Dreyer movie really. Both directors however have always shown some similarities with their movie its themes, style and characters in it. It's a compelling story, that is being told effectively. It'a obviously all based on a stage-play, which you can tell by the way the scene's are being set up and the story is getting told.
Again, it's all rather slow and the movie does definitely take its time to get its story across. It's safe to say that this movie is not just simply for everyone. But it's an ultimately rewarding movie, that is both being effective and powerful.
it's cast mostly consists out of non-professionals. Something that often got done around that time for this type of movies. It sometimes works out very well and sometimes it just simply doesn't. This movie its acting gets the benefit of the doubt, since it's hard to judge someone's acting who is speaking in a language you don't understand.
A real ultimately rewarding viewing experience.
8/10
Carl Theodor Dreyer was one of the most visual orientated directors that ever lived. His movies are often a delight to watch, due to its visuals but I also admit that I'm not a great fan of all of his work. He's praised by lots of people for his well known works but his movies are certainly lacking some of the needs that are required for a movie. His movies just aren't the best paced ones and they are often overlong and slow, with just not an awful lot happening. He masks this greatly with the visual style and quality of the movies but you can only compensate that much. His movies definitely always have some big pros and cons in them, while this movie does however luckily has far more pros.
This movie also has the great benefit that it has a great story in it. It's about faith, religion, life and death, science versus faith and whatever more discussions and different perspectives of things this movie brings along. In that regard this movie perhaps feels more like an Ingmar Bergman movie than a Carl Theodor Dreyer movie really. Both directors however have always shown some similarities with their movie its themes, style and characters in it. It's a compelling story, that is being told effectively. It'a obviously all based on a stage-play, which you can tell by the way the scene's are being set up and the story is getting told.
Again, it's all rather slow and the movie does definitely take its time to get its story across. It's safe to say that this movie is not just simply for everyone. But it's an ultimately rewarding movie, that is both being effective and powerful.
it's cast mostly consists out of non-professionals. Something that often got done around that time for this type of movies. It sometimes works out very well and sometimes it just simply doesn't. This movie its acting gets the benefit of the doubt, since it's hard to judge someone's acting who is speaking in a language you don't understand.
A real ultimately rewarding viewing experience.
8/10
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