Gertrud

A Danish film set at the beginning of the twentieth century. Gertrud is married to a lawyer. Her husband is about to become a minister and presents this to her as an achievement. She tells him she wants to leave. The reason is not a quarrel; she believes he puts her second and that this will never change. Gertrud used to be a singer. She has a lover. Erland is a young composer and she believes she can build a life with him. She has a past as well. Gabriel is a well known poet who left her years ago; they meet at a ceremony in the same city. From there the film consists of a series of encounters. A drawing room, a park, an opera box, a studio and a room. The same thing is discussed at every encounter. Whether love can be at the centre of a life, and men never agreeing to it. Erland fails too. The young man regards her as a matter of one night and has told someone about it. What the narrative is interested in is not love but refusing to compromise: Gertrud yields at no point, and the film neither rewards nor punishes it. The form is extremely static. The scenes are shot in long single takes, the camera barely moves, and the actors hardly ever look at each other; they speak looking forward, into empty space. That choice is the narrative itself. Two people talk in the same room and there is no contact, and the form shows it directly. The last section takes place years later. The old Gertrud lives alone and talks with an old friend. This is Carl Theodor Dreyer's last film. Its first showing in Paris was badly received and it was only reassessed later. Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe and Ebbe Rode are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes extreme plainness of form and classical European art cinema. Who it is not for: nearly everyone; nothing happens through the film, the pace is deliberately stopped, and on a first viewing that can be unbearable.