Summary:
A woman living in isolation faces judgement and persecution from a group of nearby villagers, who believe the woman to be a witch.
My Thoughts:
I don’t expect many people will get as much out of this film as I did. I feel like atmospheric horror films are slowly losing their audience because modern audiences aren’t willing to put in the effort to appreciate atmospheric horror; if a movie doesn’t make you jump, then it must not be scary, right? Wrong. Completely wrong. Horror films don’t necessarily need to be terrifying to accomplish what it is they set out to accomplish, and while this film was not terrifying during my actual viewing, it is a film that I will have a hard time forgetting, because there are so many moments that, in retrospect, are incredibly disturbing and memorable. While I praise this film for it’s disturbing and captivating scenes, I honestly think most audiences will have a hard time seeing this film that way; this is a very slow, very atmospheric, very artistic horror film. There are no jump scares, there are no moments of disturbingly graphic onscreen violence; instead, this film slowly steeps the viewer into an inescapable, horrifically tragic drama, where our main character feels more and more isolated, and more and more hopeless.
Shadows- Horns- Blood- Fire
“Hagazussa” is divided into four chapters: shadows, horns, blood, and fire. The first chapter works as a sort of prequel, showing our main character when she is a young girl named Albrun (Celina Peter) as she takes care of her dying Mutter (Claudia Martini). The final three chapters revolve around our protagonist as a grown woman Albrun (Aleksandra Cwen, “Interferenz”) as she tries to live her life outside the nearby village, surviving on goat’s milk and cheese while also providing for her daughter. One of the villagers, Swinda (Tanja Petrovsky), befriends her and tries to bring her into the town, but soon, Swinda’s true intentions come to light.
This film is a treat for cinephiles, but I honestly think most casual moviegoers would have a hard time appreciating this movie. “Hagazussa” is a treat for fans of cinematography, for people who love atmospheric sound design, and for people who can appreciate metaphorical writing and filmmaking, but for those who want something to constantly be happening, for those who want jump scares and graphic violence in their horror films, know that this is not the film you are looking for. This is a slow burn horror film, one where the viewer is required to constantly analyze what it is that is being shown to them. I loved this film because it kept me constantly engaged: I constantly had to be thinking about what the shots meant, because the film doesn’t spell it out for you. Likewise, many of the things that happen in this film could be left open to interpretation, and because the implications of what happen are so horrific, and the graphic details are left unshown, I found myself far more disturbed by some of the things that were only implied in the writing.
Verdict:
I really enjoyed this film, but I also think that it has a pretty small target audience. I feel like the film panders primarily to cinephiles- those who are used to watching Bergman or Tarkovsky. This movie is pretty fantastic, but it does require a bit of work from the viewer: you’ve got to think for your thrills in this movie, they don’t come easy, but the thrills are there; I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this movie since I watched it.
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