Ordet
Ordet (“the Word”) is a Danish movie by Carl Theodor Dreyer, who made, among other things The Passion of Joan of Arc. I haven’t seen lots of silent movies, but that one was incredible, and here he’s allowed to use sounds and words! Fantastic. Morten the farmer has three sons; one is normal, one is an atheist (he says agnostic, but come on), and one is completely fucking mad. Religious conflict ensues.
Anders is the youngest, he just wants to marry they tailor’s daughter, but his family and the tailor’s are different protestant sects, I’m not totally clear on the difference. This would generally stop the whole thing, but Morten has a lot of money, which may grease the wheels a little.
Mikkel has two daughters and a third child on the way. Everyone loves his wife Inger, and she goes into childbirth with the baby in breech position, and things start to go bad.
Johannes wanders around making proclamations because he believes he is literally Jesus Christ. Everyone is hilariously sick of him while all the other important, real world stuff happens in the background. He tells everyone they don’t have enough faith, and if Inger dies, he will resurrect her. He says the baby will die. He tells Mikkel and Inger’s small daughter this and she basically accepts it at face value. Mikkel wants him to shut up and go away, in Father Dougal style; remember you said I could praise God by just leaving the room?
Anyway, Inger dies in childbirth, and the baby is - we’re told - chopped up and put in a bucket, which is quite brutal. Johannes still pops up and tells people he’ll resurrect her if they have enough faith. Mikkel does not, shall we say, take him seriously, but the tragedy makes Morten and the tailor settle their differences and agree to the marriage of Anders and Anna.
I spent the whole thing expecting something to come of Johannes’ ramblings. We get to Inger’s funeral, and he’s not there. He’s wandered off again, like at the very beginning. I’m as tense as during any action sequence and suddenly he arrives again, dressed in normal clothes, claiming he’s cured, doesn’t believe he’s Jesus any more. But Jesus will bring Inger back if he sees pure, unquestioning faith. The kind of faith that a small child has had this whole time.
And you know what, it fucking works. She wakes up, comes back from the dead. I don’t even know how to parse this, but it’s significant that Johannes didn’t do the resurrection himself, thinking he was Jesus. He got his head cleared up and came back as purely a follower. Mikkel finds faith. I didn’t, but it was all very moving.