Carl Th. Dreyer: My Metier

A documentary about the Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer. Torben Skjødt Jensen does not hand it to a single narrator; actors, technicians and people close to him talk, with Dreyer's own writings and rare archive footage cut in between. The portrait that emerges is not the usual story of a master. Dreyer is described as uncompromising, fixed on detail and difficult to work for, and the same people also talk about his humour and his passion. The filmography running from The Passion of Joan of Arc to Gertrud looks less like a list of aesthetic choices than like the trace of a stubbornness. The documentary's own images are plain and orderly; it pays Dreyer respect without imitating his form.