While the opening intertitles of the film, a sentimental paean to the overlooked and underappreciated work of the mother and housewife, leave no ambiguity about the drama to come, Dreyer is far less obvious in his direction. The film opens with Ida's morning ritual, a routine that Dreyer observes with the patient care of a documentarian and the delicacy of a painter. Ida is never still as she makes breakfast, cares for the children, and sacrifices her own meager luxuries to give Viktor a little extra butter on his bread, but neither is she rushed or harried. There is a grace to her toil and a pride and satisfaction in the work she does. Her confidence and clarity unravels, however, when Viktor emerges for breakfast, complaining with his first steps into the room that coffee is no waiting for him on the table.
Viktor is a tyrant from the outset, a rude, bullying, coldly demanding man who treats Ida like a paid servant and who can't say a word to her without leveraging a criticism into it. The easy flow and rhythm of Ida's sure movement becomes tangled in his demands and her anxiety and she becomes distracted and forgetful, yet she puts on a smile and simply tries harder. Dreyer shows tremendous trust in the audience to observe and understand without editorializing and to wait for their story to emerge as Ida defends Viktor to Mads (the delightfully worldly and wily Mathilde Nielsen), Victor's old wetnurse and Ida's friend. Viktor was an optometrist who lost his business and she won't abandon him in his times of trouble. This is, after all, the European depression after World War I, and his self-respect has surely taken a hit along with their economic troubles. "Deep down we know they still over each other," remarks Ida's mother (Alvilda Kryger) but we take that former happiness on faith and Dreyer counts on our faith to follow through on his redemption when the old women plot to get Ida out of the house for a rest and teach Viktor a lesson.
The film takes place almost entirely in the family apartment, a set that Dreyer painstakingly constructed to match the plain simplicity of real-life homes, and the rhythms of everyday life within the home set the pace of the film. The care with which Ida doles out the meager stores of such luxuries as butter and carefully apportions out the butter and dutifully mends the kids' clothes tell us all about their hard economic times. All we know about Viktor's activity outside of the home is that he leaves every morning, returns at night, and can be seen frequenting a local tavern. If he has job, we don't see it. It's hard to have any sympathy for a man who takes out his resentment on his family while wasting his own days away. One of Dreyer's triumphs is slowly revealing the good man under the tyrant we first meet and suggesting the happy family that once was without a single flashback.
Master of the House appears downright old-fashioned in the first two acts but those appearances are deceiving. Dreyer has a seemingly neutral style, favoring medium shots to watch the interactions of every character and the defining shifts in body language and expression through their exchanges. The simplicity of the set and the austerity of the furnishings sets the actors off even more. It could be a Scandinavian answer to D.W. Griffith's chamber dramas but Dreyer's direction is actually far more modern and sophisticated than first appears. His direction is patient and controlled and his actor's performances understated and naturalistic. He deftly creates a rich mix of domestic drama and family comedy, though the humor is satirical and pointed rather than slapstick and silly and even carries an undercurrent of social drama and potential tragedy. In fact, until the plainspoken Mads arrives and loosens her tart tongue on Viktor ("Well, there is the howler monkey," she comments as he shouts on the street on the way home) there is no comic undercurrent to diffuse the tensions in the household.
After Ida leaves, a wry, low-key comedy emerges as the wily Mads punctures Viktor's arrogance and sense of entitlement. She assumes the same critical attitude that Viktor laid on Ida and refuses to indulge his comforts the way Ida always did. The dynamic of stern nanny and intimidated little boy replaces his dominance--he's no longer master of his house--but it's not about the loss of authority for Viktor. His loneliness grows along with a sense of shame and only then does Dreyer move his camera in to close-ups, isolating Viktor to focus in his reflections and show us the man he was before the collapse of his business. The intimacy is all the more powerful for it and it gives the last act a tender beauty and emotional payoff that is earned by the characters.
Master of the House is a handsome drama directed with elegance and care, a lovely portrait of middle-class life in Denmark during the depression of the 1920s with an undercurrent of comedy and a visual control that slowly brings us into the lives of these characters. A strong psychological depth arises from behind carefully restrained performances and the simple but evocative images. Dreyer's austerity took on a much more visually dramatic style with The Passion of Joan of Arc just a few years later. Master of the House finds its power in the grace of everyday lives and loves struggling through hard times.
Criterion releases the film in two editions: a two-disc Blu-ray+DVD Combo and a single-disc DVD only edition. Both are mastered from a new 2K digital restoration of a duplicate negative (with a couple of scenes taken from other, lesser sources) and it's a handsome-looking edition with a largely clean image, rich blacks, good contrasts, and a fairly sharp image. The slight flicker is likely due to a mix of age and a slow projection speed (common with dramas of the era). It is accompanied by a compilation piano score reconstructed by Gillian Anderson from the opening night presentation in 1925 and performed by Sara Davis Buechner. There are two supplements, both produced for this release. Film historian David Bordwell contributes a 22-minute visual essay on Dreyer's stylistic innovations illustrated by film clips, and a video interview with Danish film historian Casper Tybjerg (about 15 minutes long) offers an overview of the film and of the career of the director. The 24-page booklet features a new essay on the film by film critic and historian Mark Le Fanu.
by Sean Axmaker
