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Gertrud PG rating

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s final masterpiece centres on a woman who rejects the compromise of her marriage and retreats into a serene isolation.

Drama 1964 116 mins

Director: Carl Th. Dreyer

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Overview

Arguably Dreyer’s masterpiece, Gertrud, his final film, centres on a woman, loved by four different men, who rejects the compromise of her marriage, suffers disappointment in her younger lover and retreats into a serene isolation.

Adapted from a 1906 play by Hjalmar Söderberg, Gertrud is the story of a woman’s search for a romantic ideal of total and perfect love. A once famous singer now in her early 40s and retired in Stockholm, Gertrud makes the decision to leave Gustav, her lawyer husband for her lover Erland, a young composer. Discovering the next day that Erland has betrayed her, and that he cannot make a total commitment to her, Gertrud rejects both husband and lover, choosing a life of solitude and study over the compromise of love that is merely half-measure. ‘Gertrud is a film I made with my heart’, said Dreyer and its rigorously pared-down structure and stylised slowness, intricate camera movements and lighting effects show superbly how the art of his films were his truly great passion.

Director
Carl Th. Dreyer
Featuring
Nina Pens RodeBendt RotheEbbe Rode
Genres
Drama
Certificate
PG
Released
1964
Country
Denmark
Language
Danish with English subtitles