Master of the House

Dreyer's small-scale comedy, with its meticulous depiction of the thousand little chores of domestic order and occasional flashes of visual brilliance and startling symbolism, is nothing less than a child's muted cry of rage against the eternal elders.

Formally and politically decades ahead of its time.

Before classics The Passion of Joan of Arc and Vampyr, Danish auteur Carl Dreyer made this startlingly forward-looking domestic drama, crafted in a mode less strikingly austere but just as impressive as his more famous later works.

It's a dramatic conflict of the sexes that's been honed considerably in countless modern examples. However, one cannot ignore the fact that Dreyer's film is years ahead of its time.