Carl Theodor Dryer--My Metier Boxed Set

Writing about mid-20th century Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer's Ordet (1955), film historian Chris Fujiwara opines, "that Ordet is a great film, one of the greatest ever made, only a rash or foolish person will deny." At the risk of sounding rash or foolish, I am that naysayer…with qualifications. Ordet's tale of the trials and tribulations of the Borgen family farm--in which a flinty but life-affirming patriarch wrestles with the spiritual and physical afflictions of his three sons: the mad Johannes who thinks he is Jesus; Anders, the youngest, in love with the daughter of a dour fundamentalist; and Mikkel, the eldest, an atheist whose wife dies during childbirth--is beautifully shot, atmospheric, and occasionally quite moving. It's also immensely slow, the pivotal character Johannes sounds like a zombie reciting scripture, and the miraculous aspects of the film are unlikely to have quite the same beatific effect in viewers circa 2001 as they did in 1955. A great film? No…but certainly one in which the parts outshine the whole. Released in the wake of the success of Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (VL-11/99), this boxed set, featuring Ordet, Day of Wrath (1943), Gertrud (1964), and the documentary Carl Th. Dreyer--My Metier, sports Criterion's characteristically top-notch image and sound quality, and is recommended, particularly for cinema studies and larger foreign film collections. (R. Pitman)