Gertrud

Gertrud is a woman in turn-of-the-century Denmark who moves among artists, musicians and politicians, and who holds to an absolute idea of love that the people around her cannot match. Her husband, Gustav Kanning, is an eminent public figure whose work comes before her, so she leaves him for Erland Jansson, a young composer at the start of his career. Jansson proves self-absorbed and treats her as a passing affair rather than the great attachment she wants. When Gabriel Lidman, a poet she once loved, comes back into her life, that reunion also fails to give her what she seeks, and she is left to accept the distance between her ideal and the life she can actually have.

Carl Theodor Dreyer directed and wrote the screenplay, working from Hjalmar Söderberg's play. The film is the sixth feature he directed, following Michael, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, Day of Wrath and Ordet. Nina Pens Rode plays Gertrud, with Bendt Rothe as Kanning, Ebbe Rode as Lidman and Baard Owe as Jansson; Jørgen Nielsen produced for Palladium.

Released in December 1964 and running just under two hours, the Danish drama holds a 7.3 rating on IMDb from around 7,300 votes and a 7.2 on TMDB from a much smaller base. A critics' rating of 8.9 from 21 reviews places it well above the audience scores.