Classici fuori Mostra - Vredens Dag (Day of Wrath)

“Stylistically sophisticated in its majesty (Dreyer: “It’s not the editing that is slow, but the movement of the action. Tension is created in the calm”), psychologically rich and an expert historic re-enactment,  it is a high point in Dreyer’s career and in the history of cinema. For the Danish director – apart from any interpretation one might give – the most terrifying musical sequence in the Christian liturgy becomes a hymn to life and freedom against fanaticism, intolerance and the spiritual blindness of men”. (Morando Morandini)

“The subject is religion and the style is chaste, but Dreyer’s drama is actually a sacrilegious paean to pleasure. (…) Furious passions burst through the film’s quiet sobriety: a shot in which Anne, gliding wordlessly, ensnares Martin in her gaze has the force of the Dance of the Seven Veils. Dreyer’s impious, anarchic drama, a cry of rage at abusive authority—whether political, familial, religious, or moral—celebrates erotic love as the natural order of things”. (Richard Brody)