Summary
Viktor loves his wife Ida but as work has gotten hard, so has he. In fact Ida is working herself to the bone to maintain the home and please him but this has not gone unnoticed by her mother or Viktor’s childhood nanny, Mads. Can they save the marriage of their beloved children?
Context
I love Dreyer’s films. Like with many directors though, I tend to like his less popular films. “Ordet” and “Day of Wrath” have been out of print for years, while “Master of the House,” a favorite of many has a fantastic Blu-ray release from Criterion.
I also had not seen any of his movies that were considered comedies, which this is, and wondered how his austere and slow aesthetic might translate to such a genre.
My Thoughts
First off, though Criterion’s Blu-ray case calls this film a deft comedy, I cannot for the life of me understand why. There is nothing comedic about this film. Perhaps in the sense that it is not a Tragedy, but that seems pretty reductionistic and misleading.
The film begins with about 30 minutes of Viktor (Johannes Meyer) abusing his wife Ida (Astrid Holm). It’s not brutal or anything like we would see today in a film about an abusive relationship but he does rule the house with a brutally unforgiving countenance and biting word.
His childhood nanny, Mads (Mathilde Nielsen), who visits often, simply cannot abide any longer the abuse he heaps on the poor woman and mother and hatches a plan to remove Ida from the house and teach Viktor how difficult of a task he has lain on Ida’s shoulders by forcing him to keep the house for himself.
The thing that struck me most about this film is how progressive it is though maybe not by today’s standards. In a modern film Ida would be setting out for a divorce and establishing herself into a career and provided for her own but this is a film that revolves around a man learning to appreciate the work that his wife does and even coming to realize that while he earns the money, she has the harder job.
With the many different faces that the feminist movement has taken over the years this early step of correcting a man who has taken his wife for granted was especially meaningful for me. I’m not a business owner so it feels like there are many things that are out of my control to help women. I can’t raise their wages or give them healthcare they need or even, as a poor person, help them get out of bad living situations.
What I can do, and is easier to forget than I would like to admit, is be gracious and kind, thankful that my wife is who she is and works as hard as she does.
As our culture has turned itself on its head with such an extreme form of Capitalism, it is easy to forget that the main function of a home is not to give wage earners a place to eat and sleep till they go back out into the world but rather, the other way around. The wage earner leaves the home to provide money so that the family, the home, can be a place people want to spend time and company within.
In this film, Viktor has it upside down and the women in his life see it. When he does not respond to verbal cues, they give him a last chance to learn, though it will be a hard lesson to swallow. In many ways this is a profoundly feminist film. The lead male is the only character who is seen as ignorant of his actions effects and he is the only one so stubborn as to believe that he is always in the right.
However, I see it as more than that. In our age of shifting and more freeing gender roles, men and women are finding many ways to make their lives and homes work which have not been seen in America before. This film has a lot to say to us about how we treat the people we live with and what our responsibility as well as what our love of them should demand of us.
Another reason I like this film is the subtle spiritual implication in this film. Mads plays a very godlike role, stepping in to teach Viktor something he has not learned and redeem him. It’s not terribly pronounced and I don’t think would turn an atheist off of the film but for a Christian like me, it was a nice reminder of the symbiotic relationship between us and God as we seek to become more whole and life giving in our actions, words, and thoughts.
The themes above are what push this movie from 3 Stars to 4, for me. The film is a little jumpy at points and has a lot of vignetting that is just not commonplace in film today and thus a bit distracting which is a sin in a silent film if you ask me but I wouldn’t be sad at all if everyone who is married, in a partnership or union, or even has a roommate was required to watch it. It is the film equivalent of a proverb which I have already called to mind several times when I have been tempted to be a difficult person to live with.
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