Watching Martha Graham move in Heretic

Is this for you?

If you want a plot, look elsewhere. If you want to see how human bodies can make a room feel small and suffocating just by standing in a row, watch this. People who hate experimental stuff or get bored by anything without dialogue will probably check their phones within two minutes. But, if you like watching how art can feel like a physical threat, this is worth your time.

There isn't a story here, really. It’s just a group of dancers in these weird, stark white dresses, facing off against Martha Graham. The lighting is so high-contrast it looks like they are being dragged out of a dark void. It’s intense, in that way that feels slightly older than time itself.

The way they stomp is what sticks with me. It’s not graceful in the pretty sense. It’s heavy. It sounds like a protest, or maybe just someone refusing to move out of the way. I kept thinking about how different this is from the stuff in Blood and Sand where everything is about the grand gesture and the drama. Here, the drama is just a shoulder twitch or a chin held a little too high.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Heretic (1931) through its definitive frames.

The camera doesn't do much. It just sits there, which is a relief. It lets the dancers occupy the space instead of trying to 'direct' the dance. Sometimes it lingers on a face that looks totally drained, like they’ve been doing this for hours in a hot studio. That makes it feel real. It feels like an endurance test.

There is this one moment where the group shifts and the shadows move across their faces. It’s so simple. It made me think of the weird, tactile feeling of Der Kilometerfresser where the focus is just on the repetitive nature of a thing. You don't need a script when the movement is doing all the yelling for you.

I wouldn't call it 'fun.' But it’s sticky. You watch it, and then you find yourself walking differently for the next hour. It’s not trying to be a 'masterpiece' or anything, it’s just capturing a specific kind of tension that most movies are too scared to hold for more than a second. 💃

• The dresses look like they weigh fifty pounds each.
• The silence is louder than a soundtrack would have been.
• Martha Graham’s face is doing more work than ten lines of dialogue.
• Definitely don't watch this while eating dinner, it's too stark.