BSL-English supported event.

A gently funny battle of the sexes played out on a domestic scale by one of cinema’s greatest filmmakers.

Director Carl Th. Dreyer is best known for his austere masterpiece Passion of Joan of Arc but, as audiences at our HippFest 2019 screening of The Parson’s Widow will testify, this celebrated filmmaker is also the master of the subtle comedy.

Viktor is an embittered man who takes out his frustrations on his wife – the “heroine of the home” – and on his children. The family's imperious nursemaid (Mathilde Neilsen), who had been Viktor's governess when he was a boy, steps in to turn the tables on Victor and to teach the curmudgeonly tyrant a lesson.

Neilsen is hugely entertaining as the wise old woman, whilst the telling detail of Dreyer’s every shot and the actors’ every gesture, build the atmosphere and characterisation beautifully.

Dir. Carl Th. Dreyer | 1925 | Denmark | N/C PG | 1h 47m 

With: Johannes Meyer, Mathilde Nielsen, Astrid Holm, Clara Schønfeld and Karin Nellemose

Performing live: John Sweeney (piano)

Screening material courtesy of the Danish Film Institute