Leaves From Satan's Book

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02/02/2014 No doubt very important in the development of Dreyer, but his right-wing politics seem to have been right there from the beginning with him, and the cartoon villainy of the French and Russian revolutionaries gets a bit much after a while. 2 hours and 45 minutes of the same story, repeated over and over again, is also a litlle bum-numbing. See more eric b 03/16/2013 This film does not live up to its sensational title, but Carl Theodor Dreyer ("The Passion of Joan of Arc") crafts an interesting look at Satanic temptation. Separated into four parts a la D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance," the film spans stories from Christ's time, the Spanish Inquisition, the French Revolution and Dreyer's own era. Satan (Helge Nissen, in his only screen role) is portrayed as a weary pawn of God who's ambivalent about his evil work but forced to carry on in hopes of shortening his banishment. In each tale, Satan adopts human form and conspires to tempt a virtuous person into betraying his or her peers. The fourth segment (set in Russia-occupied Finland) lacks universality and the sins of Judas have been depicted better countless times, but the middle sections fare better. In the second part, a priest weighs loyalties to the Church and his forbidden romantic love, while the third finds the fates of Marie Antoinette and a (fictional?) countess and daughter resting on the moral quandary of a well-meaning servant. See more 04/18/2012 I understood what this movie was wanting the audience to understand with just watching the first couple of stories, but then it just keeps going on and on telling more stories that are exactly the same, and you just get bored with it. See more 03/26/2011 It's much too predictable to be successful, but its portrayal of temptation can be effective. The film follows Satan's exploits as he is commanded to tempt people even though he'd prefer to be back in God's grace. The segment on Jesus is the most workmanlike, while there are moments in the other three segments that preview Dreyer's formal command, even though it's not consistently on display. See more 01/13/2011 Boy was I disappointed, I thought this was going to be really cool, but it was basically like the Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil" except it isn't totally awesome. See more 11/21/2010 Ambitious, but not wholly successful. Dreyer was still finding his footing here; none of the imagery resonates, as it so often did in all his later pieces, and his multi-epochal narrative is in equal turns interesting and dull (the Spanish Inquisition segment feels like a complete waste of time, and the Jesus segment isn't all that much better). The fact that it was cribbed directly from Intolerance at Dreyer's admission makes it feel a lot less impressive overall, but Leaves from Satan's Book's actual accomplishments still stand. The final two segments are stirring, but ultimately nothing here will really stick with you like it did in Joan of Arc or Day of Wrath. See more Read all reviews

Leaves From Satan's Book

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