复仇之日

关于中世纪女巫悲惨命运的文学和电影作品都不少。恰恰中世纪也是基督教最鼎盛的时期，教会的力量几乎可以决定一切。正是这种独断的精神和权利统治让民众可以心安理得的以正义的名义迫害他人，这与某朝某段时期何其相似。

影片中好心帮人治病反被指认为女巫的老太太在教会的刑讯逼供下被迫承认了自己是女巫，她凄厉的喊叫，撕心裂肺的疼痛无法承受。当教会要她供出其他女巫时，她隐瞒了牧师已经死去的岳母是女巫的事实。她这么做为的就是希望牧师对自己网开一面，不要烧死她，因为牧师曾经知道岳母是女巫但放过了岳母。可地位崇高的牧师代表了“正义”，代表了上帝。牧师最终还是冷酷的将老太太送上了火刑架。在被推入火焰之前，老太太绝望的喊叫着：我不管自己到底是上天堂还是下地狱，我只想活着，我不想被烧死，不要烧死我！不要烧死我！老太太的哀嚎让人汗毛竖立，最后死前老太太对牧师及其家人下了可怖诅咒。

年迈的牧师曾经之所以放过了被指认为女巫的岳母，完全是因为他希望通过展示自己的权利来得到年轻善良的妻子，也就是女主，他的第二任妻子安妮。他得到了，可这不是爱情，安妮憎恨他，同时也憎恨牧师刻薄的母亲。牧师的母亲之始至终都是一副严肃，高高在上，刻薄的贱人面孔，无时无刻不在刁难儿媳妇。

安妮与老牧师的儿子产生了感情，他们两背着牧师在暗地里谈着恋爱，说着情话，很是幸福。最终安妮告诉了老牧师自己与他儿子通奸的事情，牧师被活活气死了。这是妻子一直盼望的事情，自己痛恨的丈夫死掉，然后和丈夫的儿子坚守爱情。一开始丈夫的儿子是站在她这一边的，可在牧师的葬礼上，牧师的母亲却指认妻子是女巫，而牧师的儿子立刻翻脸站在了奶奶这一边，留下独自战斗的安妮面对莫须有的罪名。安妮在死去的牧师棺材前承认自己是女巫，显然，此时的她只想赶快结束自己的生命，等待她的将是火刑。

德莱叶的影片灯光和镜头可谓十分讲究。被陷害的女巫凄厉的叫声，恐惧的神情，被折磨的段落，德莱叶用了大量斜下俯拍的镜头和高光让观看者处在上帝视角，看着“女巫”面对圣光求饶，让人产生极大的共情反应。

在更大的基督教背景下，一个有自主感受的女性，她心中的忿恨与反抗的情绪，随时可能让她成为众人指控的女巫，因为她想选择与众不同的道路，她想要那些能激发激情的事物，但上帝似乎对她没有仁慈可言。她对情欲的向往是有罪的，如果她对此感到不满，那么只有一句小小的诅咒才可能帮到她，人能因为一句话而被轻易定罪吗？这样的事实放在当下是非常荒谬的，然而在德莱叶的镜头下，女主人公安妮选择在众人面前吐露真相，算作是赎罪，就像电影里所说的，如果她有罪过，那么她唯一的罪是爱上了丈夫的儿子，这种逾越伦理和道德界限的爱情，看似是不可接受的，但德莱叶通过一个细节告诉我们，也许女主人公的错误可以被重新思考，安妮的母亲曾经作为女巫被处死，而她是无辜的，为了弥补，负责行刑的牧师娶了她那年轻的女儿，可是两人之间并没有激情，而这是牧师亏欠安妮的地方，作为妻子，安妮无意中爱上了自己的继子，她不顾伦理的约束，想要和他在一起，但在当时压抑的基督教背景下，这种爱情关系是注定不可能维系的，于是她的欲望所留下的债务，不可能由牧师来偿还，当安妮的情感无法得到满足时，她就有了复仇的想法，而报复之心一旦实现，她就需要为这一切付出代价，最残忍的一幕，莫过于牧师的儿子选择站到了祖母的身边（代表了家族和基督教传统），完全背弃了对安妮的誓言（我会站在你一边，会选择永恒的爱情）。另一幕是安妮兴致勃勃地阅读圣经里写植物的片段，充满了感官的色彩和生命的愉悦，却被牧师的母亲无情打断。

在德莱叶的电影中，这是相当隐晦的一部，以至于我没能马上直观地理解。尽管摄制于纳粹占领期间，德莱叶却极为艺术性地刻意避开了抓捕女巫这一行为的通俗象征，甚至走向了反面：透过其简洁过分的表象我们发现，像在某种希腊剧中那样，每个人物都混杂、暧昧，带着高于生活的现实性和无可救药的悲哀，没有一个人不是凶手（cf.《绕道》）：而在此之上俨然仍是《贞德》主题的延伸，即现世性和来世性的矛盾和沟通。修道院长那句几乎重言式地软弱无力的话：“我们活着，我们在活什么……”诡异地切中要害。安娜，生命的代表，到后来越发显得令人不安、甚至令人厌惧——她的（演员的）形象中有一种不美的东西，后者同时散发出生活的忧郁和某种极其令人不安的实在性——直到似乎一切都是倒戈（在一种冷酷的后现代性中，德莱叶甚至故意“承认”女巫的能力），我们，不自觉地被步步紧逼着，和她同时，反讽地，被击倒了。

这一切之后，我们不难理解结尾的关键时刻。“我透过泪水看，但没有人来。”说出这最后一句话时，她明白了一切；她像格里高尔一样有罪——卡夫卡由于采用近乎第一人称的写作，不可避免地把甲虫写得过于讨人喜欢了——而眼前的生命和那种来世或禅意的空旷相比，微不足道。而我们也可以想象那些处刑者和他们的祷告，依旧带着发自内心的真诚。

A

A 17th century drama about the antediluvian act of witchery persecution and the excruciating human benightedness inflicted by religious indoctrination, Carl Theodor Dreyer’sDAY OF WRATH is a sublimely slow-paced threnody that sets to shock and awe.

Prior to Ingmar Bergman’s soul-searching felicity in psychoanalyzing our mentation on the existential basis, on that same Scandinavian land, Dreyer’s moreclinical and religion-inflected study has already plunged its scalpel into the realm of complex and DAY OF WRATH, albeit its archaic subject matter, is a cinematic accomplishment nonpareil.

In the central there is a simple moral allegory, Anne (Movin) is the much younger wife of the gaunt rector Absalon (Roose), she falls for the latter’s adult son Martin (Rye) from his first marriage, and her feeling is reciprocated, but their forbidden affair can never reach a happy ending because of the overshadowing witch-hunting, an example has been set by an elderly woman Marte (Svierkier), who has been accused as such and is subjected to the stake for immolation and before perishing, an anguished Marte implores Absalon in vain to save her just like he has bailed out Anne’s mother from the same undoing, which also explains his unbefitting union with Anne in the first place.

Advancing with assignations with Martin and domestic hostility with Absalon’s stern mother Merete (a horrific Neiiendam), Anne comes off as a self-liberating soul bent on sloughing herself from the loveless arranged marriage, she is cunning enough to ensure that Martin is on the same page with her but naively takes his affection for granted and ignores a man's guilt stemming from betraying his own father. It takes two to tango but eventually, it is only the woman who has to pay for the consequence in an era that no scientific post-mortem is at hand to find out the true cause of a death, thus it is easily to blame it on a woman’s curse and then denounces her as a witch. And amplifying a mystical tenor of the occurrences, Dreyer takes an equivocal view on the witchery itself, because apparently both Merete's and Anne’s curses are eventually fulfilled, so maybe they are witches after all, which sends out a contrarian message might leave viewers considerably bewildered.

Dreyer channels a more animated and poignant performance out ofLisbeth Movin’s Anne in tandem with a stiffer and more forthright acting bent of other thespians, and incredibly constructs a solemn chiaroscuro environment out of its austere setting with superb compositional choices (awe-striking portraitures galore) and camera mobility, the film is draped with a vampiric ominousness even in the outdoor scenes, which is not relieved by the portentous score.

It is not a comforting chamber piece to wallow in and requires a certain acquired taste and religious nourishment for Dreyer’s sense of rhythm and a story so execrably backward. But credits must be bestowed to Dreyer’ssymbolic coup de maître amongst others, for example, that final shot morphing from a cross to a stake is simply here to stay to remind us there is a thin fine line between religious devotion and theological abuses.

referential point: Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA (1966, 7.7/10)