Hagazussa (2017)
Lukas Feigelfeld
"Whose path is paved with suffering and pain."
It's not possible for me to recommend Hagazussa to everyone even though I think it's a great film. I can think of maybe four people who I'd encourage to give this a watch (and I'm sure they're the only ones reading this blog post. [Honestly, a blog in 2019??]), and like 50 others that I think would never speak to me again if I told them to see this. I can't imagine what Lukas Feigelfeld's mother said to him at the premiere when the film ended. If I had directed this and showed it to my mom, her soul would leave her body. It's...a complicated watch.
The story is about a girl named Albrun who lives with her mother Martha in the Alps in the 1400's. Life is difficult, but it isn't as outwardly dire as things were for the family in The VVitch, because Europe has beautiful scenery and isn't built on one giant Native burial ground. But Albrun and Martha have it worse than most around them, because they've been outcast from the tiny Alpine village, and are treated as witches and pariahs. At one point, it's suggested that they are maybe Jews, but they're not outwardly any different from the rest of the villagers. They're just carrying around the invisible label for some unknown past transgression that has likely even been forgot among the tormentors.
One of the most amazing things about Hagazussa is how fragile and difficult it makes life look. I enjoy movies that take the time to show you meticulous tasks in careful detail. At one point Martha squeeze goats milk through a cloth to make cottage cheese, in another scene Albrun milks a goat (while masturbating, but that's another story) and it's enjoyable to watch the finer details of life during this time, because it gives you the tactile sense of how difficult it was to take care of the activities of daily living back then. Characters show their social status and means on their bodies. Martha and Albrun are small and wiry; Albrun's acquaintance and her husband are tall and have some meat on their bones. Even the children who taunt them as they try to pass down the road are plump, hearty boys. If you didn't have the means to survive, you likely didn't. At one point a character comments on how healthy Albrun's infant daughter looks, which must have been a notable thing back then. Another scene shows the difficulty of getting the child to latch during breastfeeding. Something so basic, so minor, but back then, so fundamentally essential to life, and it's not working. The stress of that situation now is mitigated by research, and breast pumps, and formula. In the 1400's, a baby who didn't latch was dead in a week.
When Martha collapses in the snow from an unfortunate and sudden onset of bubonic plague, Albrun is completely alone and is the only one capable of helping her. Death back then was intimate, hands on, and mysterious. For Albrun and Martha, it is also cold and unfeeling. When a priest/doctor comes to inspect Martha and sees the buboes, he never speaks to or comforts Albrun. He just shakes his head and leaves Martha there to whither and die in front of her daughter. Albrun struggles to feed her mother, who chokes and vomits on thin gruel and goat's milk. She becomes covered in large purulent bubous, and hallucinates with fever, interspersing her wails of agony with fits of sinister laughter. It's even more unpleasant than it sounds.
There's a lot of VVitch vibes in Hagazussa, and besides the obvious similarity in stories (how to make a witch between the years 1400-1700 AD), I think a lot of the commonality boils down to both filmmaker's intention to make a cultural folk story. Where The VVitch is about our flawed, and uniquely American, propensity to isolate ourselves from community for bad reasons, Hagazussa is absolutely one of those brutal and bizarre Old German fairy tales about children who get their fingers bit off by a ghostly woodsman if they lie to their parents brought to life through the medium of arthouse horror. It is brutal and dire and direct and there are no princesses or castles, and the only lesson is "don't be an outcast," as if that's a choice.
Like Robert Eggers with The VVitch, this was Feigelfeld's first film, and it looks and sounds amazing. He captures the grim majesty of the Alpine hills where they live, showing their beauty but keeping them foreboding. The interior of their cabin is wonderfully lived in and well realized. You understand their space and appreciate the intimacy that must have been normal at the time. The sound design is also incredible. The wind and rain pelting the cottage, the banging on the door, the taunts of the villagers coming from the woods are all beautifully mixed and sounds great on big speakers. The soundtrack is also strong. It's minimalist but darkly evocative, and it fits perfectly with the subject matter.
It's really hard to believe this was his first film.
There's a lot to unpack in the film, but one sequence that absolutely blew me away was late in the film after Albrun...um, let's say plays a really good prank on the naughty villagers and discovers some psychedelic mushrooms growing near a deer skull. She begins to trip balls 15th Century style and wanders into a slimy bog. As she's under, the filthy, swirling water begins to fill with blood, and coalesces into mishapen fetal tissue, before becoming a mix of light and dark as Albrun climbs onto the muddy shore. The visuals are just stunning, and it was nice to be truly wowed by a film's visual effects again.
I'm not going to discuss any of the plot here, other than to say it is achieved deliberately and with great care. It's also horrifying and vile and perverse and, quite literally, ghoulish. So you should probably never watch it. Unless you want to. Then you should.
Except you, mom. You'd just be worried about me.
RATING: Hagazussa knowests the taste of butter
HOW I WATCHED IT: Amazon Prime Video
BEVERAGE: Paulaner Oktoberfest
The story is about a girl named Albrun who lives with her mother Martha in the Alps in the 1400's. Life is difficult, but it isn't as outwardly dire as things were for the family in The VVitch, because Europe has beautiful scenery and isn't built on one giant Native burial ground. But Albrun and Martha have it worse than most around them, because they've been outcast from the tiny Alpine village, and are treated as witches and pariahs. At one point, it's suggested that they are maybe Jews, but they're not outwardly any different from the rest of the villagers. They're just carrying around the invisible label for some unknown past transgression that has likely even been forgot among the tormentors.
One of the most amazing things about Hagazussa is how fragile and difficult it makes life look. I enjoy movies that take the time to show you meticulous tasks in careful detail. At one point Martha squeeze goats milk through a cloth to make cottage cheese, in another scene Albrun milks a goat (while masturbating, but that's another story) and it's enjoyable to watch the finer details of life during this time, because it gives you the tactile sense of how difficult it was to take care of the activities of daily living back then. Characters show their social status and means on their bodies. Martha and Albrun are small and wiry; Albrun's acquaintance and her husband are tall and have some meat on their bones. Even the children who taunt them as they try to pass down the road are plump, hearty boys. If you didn't have the means to survive, you likely didn't. At one point a character comments on how healthy Albrun's infant daughter looks, which must have been a notable thing back then. Another scene shows the difficulty of getting the child to latch during breastfeeding. Something so basic, so minor, but back then, so fundamentally essential to life, and it's not working. The stress of that situation now is mitigated by research, and breast pumps, and formula. In the 1400's, a baby who didn't latch was dead in a week.
When Martha collapses in the snow from an unfortunate and sudden onset of bubonic plague, Albrun is completely alone and is the only one capable of helping her. Death back then was intimate, hands on, and mysterious. For Albrun and Martha, it is also cold and unfeeling. When a priest/doctor comes to inspect Martha and sees the buboes, he never speaks to or comforts Albrun. He just shakes his head and leaves Martha there to whither and die in front of her daughter. Albrun struggles to feed her mother, who chokes and vomits on thin gruel and goat's milk. She becomes covered in large purulent bubous, and hallucinates with fever, interspersing her wails of agony with fits of sinister laughter. It's even more unpleasant than it sounds.
There's a lot of VVitch vibes in Hagazussa, and besides the obvious similarity in stories (how to make a witch between the years 1400-1700 AD), I think a lot of the commonality boils down to both filmmaker's intention to make a cultural folk story. Where The VVitch is about our flawed, and uniquely American, propensity to isolate ourselves from community for bad reasons, Hagazussa is absolutely one of those brutal and bizarre Old German fairy tales about children who get their fingers bit off by a ghostly woodsman if they lie to their parents brought to life through the medium of arthouse horror. It is brutal and dire and direct and there are no princesses or castles, and the only lesson is "don't be an outcast," as if that's a choice.
Like Robert Eggers with The VVitch, this was Feigelfeld's first film, and it looks and sounds amazing. He captures the grim majesty of the Alpine hills where they live, showing their beauty but keeping them foreboding. The interior of their cabin is wonderfully lived in and well realized. You understand their space and appreciate the intimacy that must have been normal at the time. The sound design is also incredible. The wind and rain pelting the cottage, the banging on the door, the taunts of the villagers coming from the woods are all beautifully mixed and sounds great on big speakers. The soundtrack is also strong. It's minimalist but darkly evocative, and it fits perfectly with the subject matter.
It's really hard to believe this was his first film.
There's a lot to unpack in the film, but one sequence that absolutely blew me away was late in the film after Albrun...um, let's say plays a really good prank on the naughty villagers and discovers some psychedelic mushrooms growing near a deer skull. She begins to trip balls 15th Century style and wanders into a slimy bog. As she's under, the filthy, swirling water begins to fill with blood, and coalesces into mishapen fetal tissue, before becoming a mix of light and dark as Albrun climbs onto the muddy shore. The visuals are just stunning, and it was nice to be truly wowed by a film's visual effects again.
I'm not going to discuss any of the plot here, other than to say it is achieved deliberately and with great care. It's also horrifying and vile and perverse and, quite literally, ghoulish. So you should probably never watch it. Unless you want to. Then you should.
Except you, mom. You'd just be worried about me.
RATING: Hagazussa knowests the taste of butter
HOW I WATCHED IT: Amazon Prime Video
BEVERAGE: Paulaner Oktoberfest
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