Silent, Swedish documentary on witchcraft with visually striking reenactments. A fever dream of persecution, oppression, torture and repressed sexuality through history. A hallucinatory experience that makes its audience actively experience the hysteria it depicts. That sensation of a desire so powerful, it presents the constraint of an academic lecture while at its heart it wants to be the devil waggling its tongue at you.
The film includes the well-known double-edged sword of women accused of being a witch tied and tossed into the river. If they float, they will be burned for witchcraft. If they drown then everyone will know they were innocent. The abuse of power done in the name of God by immoral men unable to control their primal urges and looking to blame someone else. Not only is it incredibly progressive in its views on mental health and women for 1922, but the images and scenes have this hallucinatory quality that make you feel as if you’re under a spell watching it. It’s also erotic and knowingly kinky without being pornographic in any sense. This film has been witch-crafted rather than directed.
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