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... but you wouldn't know it. The spectrum of religious belief explored through the eyes of rural Danish families in 1925 - a tricky birth, falling for the wrong girl and a son who thinks he's Jesus sets the scene. Nothing to make you smile, except for the end which, depending on your own dogma, may allow you a brief smirk.

Time for my annual dose of Dreyer, taken like medicine. Is it fair that Dreyer has a reputation of being turgid, slow, archaic, depressing, theatrical? Well, yes. Look at this. A large part of the time is spent watching people walk slowly from one side of the room to the other. In fact, this seems to be Dreyer's main directorial idea because the rest of the time they just stand there like hatstands. At climactic moments a door may be opened. There is no attempt to vary pace or tone; the dialogue is as stilted as silent movie cards. In fact, this looked and felt like a film made in 1915, not 1955.

The film presents a Danish society so insular that subtle shades of Christianity tear them apart. That might be interesting if treated with any sort of subtlety or depth. Not here, where the plot is built with a few huge stone bricks. And we have not one but two of the most morose characters in all cinema. Old Borgen, who has the lion's share of the dialogue, always stares fixedly into the middle-distance while speaking - I presumed he was reading his lines off a card.

Dreyer is a man entirely without humour. The mad son Johannes looks like Rasputin with slicked down hair and an immaculate centre-parting; he thinks he is Christ and walks in and out slowly spouting religious twaddle in a high pitched monotone with no facial movement whatsoever. Perhaps Dreyer was paying homage to Ed Wood here. Johannes' every appearance is unintentionally hilarious. If he can't see this, Dreyer really must have something missing. If you're not laughing at Johannes yourself every time he appears, I'm not sure I want to know you.

And never have I been so let down by the ending of a film. A literal deus ex machina that I simply found intellectually offensive - all the more so because we can see it coming a long way back but are still led at snail's pace towards it.

Painfully sincere, and good for the soul maybe, but woefully unaccomplished. To be enjoyed only by Quakers.

First, I must say I don't write in English very well. I study English, a little bit, in the school. I speak and write usually in Spanish and Basque. Well, I think this is one of the best movies I've ever seen. Johannes is a magnificent character and two scenes with Johannes and his nephew, talking about nephew's mother... are great. The story is about life, dead, love, faith and a lot of "people's problems" At the end, is a story about the meaning of life. I like movies. Love stories, westerns, "film noir", adventures films... but occasionally you can see a movie like this that makes you love this art too much. You're not seeing a film, you're living the film. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

Others have reviewed this picture in a more scholarly and contextual manner than I can, so I will only endeavor to add the following:

I have a particular interest in the nature of faith, and undertook to view Ordet as something "good for me," but probably arduous. Wrong! I also grew up in an area heavily populated by Scandinavians, and knew immigrants who were contemporaries of the oldest characters in the picture.

Ordet, set in 1925, is a dead-on take of old-school Scandinavian culture, suffused with both the most intense dramatic elements imaginable and moments of comic relief as well. The action moves right along without help of special effects or a distracting musical score.

This picture at least alludes to the seldom-asked question, "Why do people believe?" Is it merely for the rewards of faithfulness, or something more?

The final scene, utterly devoid of effects or music, has a dramatic power unexcelled in the ensuing 47 years of cinema to date. It is very long, but uses its duration in service of the tension of the story. Nobody is yelling, fighting or firing weapons, despite the fact they are enduring emotional torment that is as painful as it gets.

In an oblique way, the scene reminded me of the part of Jim Jarmusch's "Down By Law" where Tom Waits and Co. are sitting in the clink in real time, and time passes glacially in one very long scene, illustrating the sheer boredom of incarcerated life. Here real time is used to illustrate the unrelenting nature of grief. In both cases we see what happens long after the scene would have changed in nearly any other picture. The pace conforms plausibly with real life, and in so doing serves the dramatic tension.

One negative review alludes to the final shot and the expression in a character's eyes. I would defend that as an insight that no blessing is unmixed.

As others have noted, one needn't hold a Christian point of view to enjoy this film and be given much to ponder. See it.

(Some Spoilers) Simple but powerful film about faith and how it can not only bring two warring families together but even bring someone back from the dead. If the belief in God by those close to him is strong enough.

Having lost his faith in God a long time ago Morten Borgen, Henrik Malberg,attends church services more out of tradition then belief. Morten also seems to have influenced his older son Mikkel,Emil Hass Christensen, over the years with his semi-agnostic ideas as well. Being married to Inger, Brigitte Fedenspiel, Mikkel is a sweet and loving husband and father to both Inger and their little daughter Maren, Anne Elisabeth. Still he gets very up tight when talk about religion comes up at home. Mikkel also very upset and embarrassed about his younger brother John, Preben Leerdorff Rey,who's suffering from burn-out. That resulted from his time in college studying religion writings and theories.

John has become convinced over time that he's Jesus Christ and goes around the house and countryside quoting phrases from the Bibel like an Old, or New, Testament prophet. Morten's youngest son Anders Cay Krisiansen, has fallen in love with the local Tailor's Peter Skraedder, Ejner Federspiel,daughter Anne, Greda Nielson. With the help of Morten's daughter-in-law Inger there's a meeting arranged between the two fathers to get Peter's permission to have Anne marry Anders. the meeting turns into a total disaster with Peter wanting nothing to do with Morten and his son Anders.

The two, Peter and Morten, have been having sharp differences on religious issues for years and they really came into focus later on in the movie with Inger who was pregnant at the time. With Morten at his home Peter gets a call from Mikkel about Inger being very ill as she's about to give birth. Peter starts to feel that now his friend Morten will be tested by God like the Biblical Job. By having Inger die and having him accept what happens to her without any show of anger on his part to show his complete faith in God's work which is to test Morten.This unfeeling statement by Peter causes an angry and outraged Morten to almost clobber, and end up on nonspeaking terms with, him and end their friendship. At first Inger seems to be coming out of danger but later, after losing her baby, she just closes her eyes and stops breathing and peacefully passes away.

Inger's death causes Peter to feel a deep guilt by practically telling Morten that he hoped that she'd dies. At the same time Peter leaves Morten so depressed in almost wanting to die himself. Mikkel also is at the point of having an emotional breakdown at Inger's wake not wanting to leave her side and preventing her coffin to be closed so sher could be buried in her eternal resting place.

John, who was gone all this time, appears and with only young Meren believing him in his assertion that faith in God is the only force that can bring Inger back to life. If those who are now grieving for her showed that faith during her illness, instead of faith in modern medicine, this tragedy would not have happened. John then not only does the impossible but shows everyone there that he wasn't the unstable and irrational parson that they all thought that he was all these years. In fact he was a man of deep faith and conviction in God who never wavered in his strong and unshakable beliefs. No matter how hard they were tested by the events spinning around him.

Slow paced film that has an underlying and invisible force to it that doesn't really show itself until well into the movie. John who we all thought was somewhat mad is the person brings everyone in the movie together by making them realize that there is a God and the real proof of his existence is all around us. If we just take the time and effort to look.