The Fullness of Time: Kierkegaardian Themes in Dreyer’s Ordet

Abstract

I offer an approach to Dreyer’s film Ordet as a contribution to the phenomenology of a certain kind of religious experience. The experience in question is one of a moment that disrupts the chronological flow of time and that, in the lived experience of it, is charged with eternal significance. I propose that the notoriously divisive ending of Ordet reflects an aim to provide the film’s viewers with an experience of this very sort. I draw throughout on some central ideas in Kierkegaard’s work, especially his category of ‘the moment.’

Keywords

• philosophy
• Kierkegaard
• Dreyer
• religion
• phenomenology
• spirituality
• film
• eternity
• time
• temporality