Gertrud (1964) by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Sunday, January 31, 1988, 8:00 pm
Films By Carl Dreyer & Daniel Barnett
Gertrud by Carl Th. Dreyer/Untoward Ends by Daniel Barnett
“Dreyer’s (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, etc.) extraordinary last film doesn’t so much tell a story as offer a meditation on existence itself as seen through the character of Gertrud, her memories, loves, and eventual isolation. It is a film of deeply expressive form: slow and deliberate camera movements, intense darks and brilliant light, long monologues, and imagined as well as real interiors. Untoward Ends by Daniel Barnett is an equally profound, mysterious work expanding what appear to be momentary glimpses of familiar images into a universe of intense contrast. Shapes (of perhaps a dream) emerge and disappear at the edge of the frame or into blackness: Barnett and Dreyer both create worlds in which objects are aglow with more than their usual meaning.” — Programmed and notes by Peter Herwitz