The Parson's Widow (1920)
Three Films by Carl Theodor Dreyer
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:11:02 | 6,87 Gb
Musical Score AC3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps with English intertitles
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Classics
Carl Theodor Dreyer creates a humorous, poignant, and compassionate domestic satire on aging, obsolescence, and the social status of women in The Parson's Widow. Using recurrent imagery, doppelgängers, and plot repetition, Dreyer affectionately illustrates the transience and unalterable cycle of life: the repeated shot of Söfren and Mari by the waterfall at the beginning and end of the film; Dame Margarete's perceived appearance as a young woman; the dilemma that Dame Margarete and her first husband (her true love) similarly faced as Söfren and Mari on the road to the parsonage. Inevitably, by presenting Söfren and Mari's comically misadventurous path towards reconciling the diametric forces of moral obligation and personal integrity, perseverance and humanity, social duty and emotional need, Dreyer reveals the immutable process of life and the innate human struggle for spiritual and secular equilibrium.