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Rating: Not too long ago censorship was nothing short of ruthless.
Ruthless not only with the world of the seventh art but also with TV programs, with music... practically with every form of art.
When I found myself watching this film for the first time, a sense of confusion completely took over me. It’s hard to believe that in 1922 censorship was so elastic as to allow "certain scenes" and show them to an audience surely unprepared to endure such "visual follies".
Yet, "Haxan - Witchcraft Through the Ages" can be considered as clear evidence that all of this was possible a hundred years ago. Total narrative freedom, total anarchy in telling and representing a story along with the scenes that build it. "Haxan" is a film that leaves no escape, it scandalizes you, terrifies you, captivates you, and takes possession of you.
From the information we were able to gather, it seems that director Benjamin Christensen had a deep passion for witchcraft before making this film - not in the sense of rituals, sects, and whatever else, but in the history of witchcraft. In fact, Christensen's project initially planned for a documentary and not a true feature film.
A documentary about the persecution of witches, the tortures, the pyres where these "old and strange" ladies lost their lives cruelly.
The documentary idea was not entirely abandoned, quite the opposite... for several minutes from the beginning of the film onwards, we actually witness not a "classic" film but a kind of "reportage", a sort of documentary where (complete with a maestro's baton) we are shown many historical documents, many drawings taken from ancient books. Stories, legends, evidence, and photos that testify to how witchcraft has undergone real changes over the centuries and through progress. Only after all this does the film begin.
Christensen, talking about witchcraft, brings to the screen as a point of reference the demon Beelzebub (played by himself) and I must say that when he appears (always suddenly) he makes you literally tremble. Once, people truly understood the concept of fear, there were no warnings, there was nothing that made you suppose that from one second to the next you were about to take a six-and-a-half-meter leap from your chair. Beelzebub appears suddenly, behind a curtain, while a nun prays, behind many candles. His appearances are "lightning-quick", his cruelty is represented not so much through his actions as much as through his malicious and terrifying gaze. I have seen many films about demons, this one comfortably ranks among the very best, if not perhaps the best ever!
Then, we move on to the witches, these old ladies who can barely chew some filth they prepare, their mysterious potions, which are horrifying, where animals pay the price – rats, snakes, and others... potions that naturally instigate anyone towards pure evil. Then we come to the most shocking scene of the entire film featuring these witches. The scene where these old women kiss/lick the demon’s anus as a sign of deep respect and devotion. Did you read that correctly? Do you understand that I'm talking about a film from 1922? Do you realize how absurd that is? I ask myself two things. The first: Will they ever make a movie like this today? The second: How the hell did the audience react a hundred years ago when they saw this scene at the cinema? It's a shame there's no documentation to tell us.
But that's not the end of it! Christensen, who must have been a true cinema anarchist and revolutionary, someone who disregarded the rules (assuming there were any rules at the time... because at this point I think there weren't any), goes even further, and does not hesitate to show us naked bodies dancing among bubbling cauldrons before starting an orgy that is nothing short of bestial. Nymphomaniac demons ready to "please" the witches with their long tails inserted imagine where... demons ready also to please the pure, the virgins, and the nuns who try so hard to fight them. With all this, I mean to say that bringing raw and crude sex to an audience completely unprepared for this type of cinema was madness. I realized that Benjamin Christensen was undoubtedly a director who, in order to elevate his art to the fullest and bring his concepts, his nightmares, his passions, and very likely his perversions to film, wanted to challenge everything and everyone. The film could very easily have been a flop (and I don’t know if it was back then), but it is clear Benjamin didn't care, unlike today’s directors who have to be careful to "show" within certain limits, otherwise a box-office flop is guaranteed. Today there isn’t the artistic freedom there once was, it’s useless to hide it. Cinema has evolved into special effects and many other things... but it no longer enjoys that indispensable freedom to represent something like, for example, hell as it should indeed be represented. That's why most movies today are trivial. I want to see if a "The Nun" or a "Slender Man" or an "It - The Clown" will be remembered over a hundred years from now!
This film, in any case, has undergone cuts... but they were made many years after its release when it already had a certain "uncomfortable" notoriety, so I recommend you look for (it can be found easily) the full version to truly understand Christensen’s insane work.
And yet I am not finished, yes... the blasphemies and atrocities aren’t over yet!
The snake, always a symbol of evil... slithers in the film... and slithers slowly among the poor nuns who cry and pray, for their salvation and that of all humanity. One of them, possessed by the demon, will come to... oh guys... I can’t write it... it’s stronger than me... it’s too much even for me! And I'm not saying this to pique your curiosity, I swear!
One of the most visually powerful films I have ever seen, a film that, through demons, witches, legends, and religions, embraces many other themes, including even modern medicine. A film completely outside every schema, shot in a way that is nothing short of masterful, every single scene is a damn nightmare to be lived with open eyes. The recreated dark atmosphere brings shivers, the faces of the demons, but also those of the nuns, priests, and witches are all unsettling and not at all reassuring, it is a film capable of making you feel worse than any shitty horror/slasher of today. An indisputable milestone of cinema, undoubtedly dark, and always sought to be kept hidden from the general public... and I can understand the reasons, but undeniably its greatness is unquestionable.
VinnySparrow
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