‘Häxan’: the silent masterpiece that caused worldwide controversy
Benjamin Christensen had an interesting background before steering towards creative grounds, abandoning a career in medicine to become an opera singer before losing his voice and trying his hand at theatre acting. This path proved to be no more promising, and so he settled on a steady job as a businessman before finally deciding to become a director. This level of chaos can be found in his later work on screen despite there being no trace of this in his early films like Sealed Orders and Blind Justice, creating a jarring sight to behold in his 1922 film Häxan.
Christensen found himself fascinated with the history of witchcraft and embarked on a lengthy research process, looking into the eerie commonality of witch trials in Western culture. He found that many of the women who were accused of this behaviour were often just misdiagnosed people who were mentally unwell and in need of care, instead being labelled as being insane and not deserving of empathy or care. This subject proved to be an endless well of stories, leading him to make a film about it in 1921.
The film is a collection of vignettes that explore the scientific hypothesis that witches during the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. Christensen portrays this through a lens as controversial and taboo as the witches themselves, depicting short stories about grave robbers, torture scenes, possessed nuns and a satanic Sabbath.
While this type of subject matter would not deter modern audiences from stepping foot in the cinema, it caused quite an uproar at the time of its release, with several countries objecting to its use of violence, sex, nudity and anti-clericalism. For it to be shown in the United States, Germany, and France, the film had to be extensively edited and censored, and only a few people saw it as its controversial reputation began to precede it. It was relegated to a specific region of filmmaking hell, with the project remaining unseen for many years due to its supposedly twisted and abject imagery.
Whenever the film was shown, it was an extremely condensed version called Witchcraft Through the Ages, narrated by William S Burroughs. However, in recent years, the film has seen a resurgence in popularity after being restored and given wider distribution, connecting to modern audiences through its open-ended meaning and once-divisive imagery. The subject of witches has always been a sore spot within many communities, but it seems as though the story is finally reaching people in a new way, showing how the filmmaker was perhaps just operating ahead of his time.
Perhaps one of the most unsettling elements of the film is its silence, which emphasises the shock of each scene through its disquieting stillness. The eerie emptiness of the sound contrasts with the vivid abstractions on screen, creating a discomforting experience that almost exaggerates your visual senses without anything to accompany it.
There were few horror films being made during this era, which is perhaps why it spooked audiences so intensely, something that modern viewers are more equipped to deal with after being vaguely desensitised to violence and extreme imagery on screen. However, it is understandable why this was met with such backlash at the time, sticking out for its masterfully uncomfortable visual storytelling that was decades ahead of what people could bear to see, merging the line between a nightmare and waking life as it haunted audiences with their own gruesome past.
