Witches Hammer (no 39)

 

by Allan Fish

(Czechoslovakia 1969 103m) DVD1/2 (Czech only)

Aka. Kladivo no carodejnice

A woman’s womb is the gate to hell

d  Okatar Vávra  w  Okatar Vávra, Ester Krumbachová  play  Vacláv Kaplicky  ph  Josef Illik  ed  Antonin Zelenka  m  Jiri Srnka (including Antonio Vivaldi)  art  Karel Skva

Vladimir Smeral (Boblig), Josef Bláha (Count Stermberk), Eduard Cupak (Fárar Schmidt), Blazena Holisová (Sattlerová), Josef Kemr (Ignác), Miriam Kantorková (Tobiásová), Jiri Holy (Farár), Rudolk Kratky (Hutter), Blanka Waleská (Countess de Galle), Jaroslava Obermaierová (Liza), Jirina Stepnicková (Dorota Groerová),

What is it about witchcraft and possession that so intoxicates film-makers?  It’s a subject that has been at the centre of so many memorable films, including at least three others in this list (Haxan, Day of Wrath and Witchfinder General), as well as many more (including those vastly different studies of the infamous events at Loudon, Mother Joan of the Angels and The Devils, and various versions of Arthur Miller’s play that needn’t be named).  It’s perhaps to the Kawalerowicz and Russell films that this eclectic masterpiece is most closely related, though in truth it bears traces of all the above. 

            Vavrá’s film sets its scene in its opening caption; “texts of court hearings are taken from authentic court records of Inquisition trials which took place at Velké Losiny and Sumberk from 1678-1695.”    When an old woman steals a holy host to take to a medicine woman to cure a cow, accusations of witchcraft are made by the local priest to the local nobility.  It is decided that a specialist inquisitor (a sort of legitimised Czech version of Matthew Hopkins) be sent for to root out all traces of witchcraft in the area.  On arrival, he spreads terror round the town, accusing scores of men and women of witchcraft, often targeting the noble and wealthy, with the intention of confiscating their goods.

            Vavrá’s film really is like an example from the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ brought to visceral visual life.  It begins with a deliciously prurient sequence of young women naked in a bath-house, the camera caressing their flesh as towels caress them for the audience by proxy.  It’s a scene that surely lead Josef Skvorecky to exclaim the film “a black mass of nudity“, though in truth the nudity in later portions of the film is, though equally explicit, far from plentiful.  This Borowczyk-like display of naked curves is followed by a sequence of purest hypocrisy, as supposedly Christian people walk past beggars without giving them anything, all the while declaring “may the Lord bless you a thousand times” while doubtless adding under their breath “because we won’t.”  Women are seen as objects of lust, a lust excusable in that they are possessed by Satan.  Who can forget the truly laughable, were it not so distressingly serious, sequence where an Inquisition official examines a naked accused for the sign of the devil, knowing fine well everyone has a birth mark, then the loathsome Boblig affirming “signum diabolicum“, a truly irrefutable diabolic sign.  Indeed, it would be fair to say that this is probably the best film ever made about the Inquisition and its abhorrent practises.  Only Kawalerowicz’s film comes close, yet even that perhaps lacked the hysteria (which Ken Russell’s film had in spades). 

            What is often forgotten, however, in such a film is that it’s equally as much a story about faith, in the tradition of Carl Dreyer.  One unfortunate accused reminds the Bishop of his Judas-like actions, while the local priest prostrates himself as if to exclaim “mea culpa!”  Vavrá is undoubtedly helped by his collaborators, not only the cast, who strike the perfect balance between hysteria and solemnity, but for the stark beauty of Illik’s images (sadly cropped from the cinemascope original to 1.85:1 on the awful Facets DVD but crisp and full widescreen on the Czech restoration) and to the wonderful clash of music, between the baroque elegance of Vivaldi’s violin concertos and the ritualistic remorseless drumbeat of Srnka’s main theme.  By the end, when the priest murmurs “our father, who art in heaven, don’t forgive them, or me, our trespasses, for in your name we have sinned against man“, even the staunchest agnostic is liable to say “amen.”