The documentary form was
only in it’s infancy in the early 1900s, only having seen success in the
mainstream with Robert Flaherty’s still divisive “documentary” Nanook of the North which depicted the
life of Eskimos as much as it staged it.
While it would take years for the average cinephile to pick up on when
documentary realism is or isn’t truly happening in front of the camera, the
idea of staging reenactment footage of preexisting events for the sake of a documentary
narrative was relatively new and ultimately became an integral approach to what
would become the still revolutionary “documentary” of sorts, the 1922 Swedish-Danish
silent documentary about witchcraft and witch hunts, Haxan. Translated to Witch and considered to be the most
expensive Scandanavian silent film ever made at the time, director Benjamin
Christensen’s four-part documentary which cross-cuts between scholarly
lecturing and kitschy mixture of all things demonic including graphic nudity,
bawdy sexuality and violent torture might be the earliest rendition of satanic
imagery ever created for the cinematic medium.
Loosely based on the historical text Malleus
Maleficorum and designed in part as a study of how limited knowledge of
modern medicine and mental illness resulted in mass witch burnings in the
Middle Ages and how such naïve superstitions are still applicable in our modern
world, Haxan achieves that rare feat
of being as educational of an experience as it is exploitative.
Despite being made in 1922,
this still ahead-of-its-time shockfest with everything including but not
limited to hysterical nuns, demonic orgies, a baby drained dry of its blood
before being cooked, women ritualistically smooching Beelzebub’s ass and
medieval tortures, Haxan was banned
outright in the United States and heavily censored in almost every territory it
appeared in before being re-edited into a shortened version renamed Witchcraft Through the Ages in 1968 with
voiceover narration by William S. Burroughs.
Less of a serious minded critique of society than a bawdy witches’ brew
of all things unholy, this technically proficient exercise in occult imagery,
loose surrealism and a kind of tongue-in-cheek approach to the macabre and
bizarre, the highly theatrical Haxan inarguably
influenced everyone from Hammer Horror to Ken Russell and even now remains
difficult to fully gauge. In one breath,
it’s deadly serious and in the next its dancing about naked with impish
glee. Most notable of all is director
Christensen who plays the devil himself, slithering about shirtless with an
extended tongue and devil horns as his sharp claws grope the naked bodies of
women. Paving the way for endless
interpretations of the dark lord of the underworld (Tim Curry in Legend most notably), casting himself as
Satan only serves to blur the lines between documentary objectivity and geek
show lunacy where we’re not sure how seriously we should be taking it.
Thought to be lost through
years of censorship and plain old wear and tear characteristic of silent films’
difficult survival over the course of a century, Haxan and its creator were sadly neglected with the film itself
falling into public domain and numerous alternate versions existing before the
Burroughs version came along in the 60s.
That is until 2001 when the film underwent an extensive restoration to
bring the film closest to its original theatrical form including intentional
tinting of specific scenes and a re-rendering of the original score in 5.0
surround sound thanks to the painstaking efforts of the Swedish Film Institute
and was re-released on DVD by the Criterion Collection. As such, the travelogue through macabre
excess functions less as a compelling documentary narrative and more like a
demonic video installation akin to E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten and is a perfect item to play on the background at
Halloween parties. Even a few years
prior to the restoration, The Blair Witch
Project creators Daniel Myrick, Gregg Hale and Eduardo Sanchez named their
production company Haxan Films as a subtle nod to the witch movie that started
it all. As a straight watch Haxan is decidedly less engaging than
the films it would inspire decades later but as a collection of all things
horror oriented, it’s a splendid concoction with stunning production design,
elegant costumes and makeup and a sensibility that seems years ahead of the era
in which it was made.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki