There are several sections to the movie Haxan that I understood the first time I watched it. This documentary style movie was made in an age where superstition was related to things from the various religious practices of the time. The film maker even goes to the lengths of describing how people saw the world during medieval times as a flat surface with the stars hanging close by Earth because we happened to be the center of the universe. We know, however, that isn't the case any longer.
Some of the camera exposure techniques for this film were amazing for the time and even hold up still today, albeit in a more sophisticated fashion. The double exposures were a great tool here to trick the audience into believing that there were flying witches. Also, some of the reversing of the film to show things coming back out of the room and other clever segments were a surprise to see in a film from back then. The one thing that stands out to me the most of this film is the pleasant music that scores the piece. It sounds like a happy frolic through the picture, when the subject matter was anything but friendly. It sounds like something taken from a Disney movie.
I did enjoy the transition from medieval times into what would have been modern for the twenties. This brought the "modern medicine" and techniques of the doctors of the time to be able to diagnose for hysteria rather than suspecting people of being witches.
Upon doing a small bit of web searching, I came to find that Christopher Lee, made famous in Hammer Films such as Count Dracula and later on as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings Series, was born the same year as the release of Haxan.
Of the films for this weeks clips in class and our homework, I enjoyed watching Vampyr again at home along with Haxan. Although the two are vastly different in structure, both must have been terrifying for the time. The unknown of the supernatural of those days must have had the audiences screaming up the aisles.
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