Carl Theodor Dreyer’s haunting and brilliant parable is apparently based on an actual case. In 17th century Denmark, young Anne (Lisbeth Movin) is married to an aging pastor (Thorkild Roose). He had saved Anne’s mother from being burned at the stake as a witch, then married Anne without asking for her consent. When the pastor’s adult son Martin(Preben Lerdorff Rye) comes home, he falls in love with Anne. Though under the stern judgemental eye of the pastor’s mother, Anne and Martin are deliriously happy in their love affair but feel guilt for what they are doing behind the pastor’s back (he is a good husband, though blind to his wife’s needs). When a friend of Anne’s mother is hunted for being a witch, Anne is reminded of her mother’s legacy; she begins to suspect that she herself might be a witch — confirmed in her mind when, after wishing her husband were dead so her and Martin can be together, he has a heart attack and dies. Made during the German occupation of Denmark in WWII, Dreyer’s austere film reflects the constrictive circumstances of a life where one is under constant scrutiny and judgement, and freedom (represented by Anne’s sexual freedom with Martin) is repressed. But what makes this film especially resonant is the lack of resolution as to whether Anne (who is finally persecuted at the film’s end, her fate sealed) is in fact a witch. Though ridiculous to imagine, she does seem to have “control over the living and the dead” — which in the film could be coincidental. But it doesn’t matter if she is actually a witch or not — what matters is that because of the circumstances of her life, Anne believes herself to be a witch, as does the community. Film’s treatment of religion is similar to his later film Ordet, where the validity of the faith depicted is questioned but never actually debunked. Dreyer’s style is hypnotic, with the characters moving slowly through spare interiors, contrasted with the lush exteriors where Anne and Martin express their passion for each other, and a shocking scene where a suspected witch is killed by tying her to a ladder and dropping it on a burning pyre, while children observe and sing hymns. Beautifully photographed by Karl Andersson — and a key work in the transcendental style typified by many of Dreyer’s films.