Leaves from Satan's Book (1921)

Jesus, the apostles and a lot of text

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Starring Helge Nissen (and a lot of other people)
Produced by Nordisk Film

The war in heaven is over and Satan has lost.  As his punishment, Satan is sentenced to tempt humans into evil actions.  If people give into temptation, Satan receives another 100 years of punishment.  However, if they can resist, God will remove 1000 years from Satan's sentence.

Leaves from Satan's Book follows the devil as he attempts to sow the seeds of evil at the time of the Crucifixion, the Inquisition, the French Revolution and the Finnish Civil War.  There is one good movie here, two okay ones and one that is terrible.

The best of the four is the tale during the French Revolution.  As the aristocrats are rounded up, Joseph. a servant of the Count de Chambord, sneaks his master's wife and daughter into Paris to avoid the guillotine.  Joseph is in love with the daughter, but she does not reciprocate his feelings.  Satan, in the form of Erneste, brings Joseph into the Jacobin circle.  Erneste points out to Joseph that he only needs to threaten to expose the lineage of the de Chambords.  Joseph resists, but Satan forges a letter to the Jacobins about the aristocrats and blames it on Joseph.  If the man admits he did not author the letter, he will be led to the guillotine.  If he lies and says he exposed the women, he will be hated forever by the woman he loves.  What will he do?

The two okay movies follow similar paths, albeit with different endings.  The Inquisition episode revolves around a priest that lusts after a woman.  He can use his position to pressure the woman.  In the Finnish story, a man in love with a Finnish patriot's wife threatens to inform on the couple to the Red army.  These two are pretty simple tales told well by the director.

The same cannot be said of the Bible story.  It's poorly acted, poorly edited and has no tension at all.  There are random cuts to close-ups of people's faces that are inexplicable.  The film never shows us during this episode, it tells us.  Almost nothing is conveyed by the camera; it's all done through title cards.  Satan's influence over the high priests makes no sense because they are already screaming for blood.  And there's nothing like building dramatic tension by telling a story that everyone knows and bringing nothing different to it.

There's a flotilla of actors here and none are extraordinary.  Helge Nissen's Satan connects the tales and you never feel the internal conflict he must have being cursed to entreat people into actions that lengthen his own punishment.

I can't really recommend anyone sit through this.  The opening tale is the Passion and it is horrendous.  The other three are okay, but nothing special.

** out of *****

Photo from Greencine Daily