Page - 175 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

even though he is a pacifist and as a priest not allowed to – and kills a civilian. He re- turns home deeply traumatised and the face of the dead Muslim woman haunts him day and night. When August tells his father what has happened, Johannes advises him not to confess his deed to the bishop as it would cost August his job and – not to for- get – damage Johannes’s reputation. He also advises August not to see a psychiatrist or take psychotropic drugs. Were he to do so, Johannes explains, August would no longer be able to hear God’s voice, a gift that marks him both as chosen by God and as a member of the Krogh family. Here Adam Price weaves a dense web of cross-media references that situate the plot in a specific cultural and cinematic context. The refer- ence to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s great drama Ordet (The Word, DK 1955), in which an- other Johannes, the second son of a rich farmer, exhibits signs of mental illness after studying Søren Kierkegaard and believes himself to be Christ, is obvious. Johannes of Herrens Veje also constantly condemns society’s lack of faith. In August, he detects a fierce faith paired with the gift of rhetoric – for him the most important instruments for a clergyman. August must therefore keep his ears open to receive God’s words, that he might preserve his own faith and persuade others. But how can one keep one’s faith as one’s doubts grow stronger and there is no one there to save one? “My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?” – of Faith and Self-Doubt The “almighty father”, the character Johannes likes embody in public, is too much of a narcissist and egotist to recognise the problems that trouble his own family (fig. 2). Every setback – his rejection as bishop, Christian’s dropping out or Elis- abeth’s affair – lead to new doubts, which he tries to supress with alcohol or reli- gious fervour. Johannes’s ambivalent nature makes him very human, showing the man behind the mask and knocking the priest – the human exemplum virtutis – off his pedestal. Yet the audience may be unsettled to see that those who are suppos- edly moral authorities do not necessarily practise what they preach. As a true believer, Johannes is eager to spread God’s word, but as a human being, he makes poor decisions and feels inadequate when the unexpected happens. This charismatic and credible spiritual leader is a man with doubts, but his doubts are never about God’s existence – maybe the one thing he is sure about – only about his own suitability and capacities as a pastor. His conviction distinguishes him from an- other well-known pastor in film history, Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand), pro- tagonist of Ingmar Bergman’s Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light, SE 1963). Having served in the Spanish Civil War, Ericsson doubts God’s existence as he struggles with the problem of theodicy. 174 | Natalie Fritz www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 7–15