Master of the House

Synopsis

In a cramped Copenhagen tenement apartment, a petty, tyrannical bourgeois husband constantly bullies, insults, and exhausts his gentle, self-sacrificing wife, prompting his outspoken elderly childhood nurse Mads to send the wife away to the countryside for rest and take tyrannical charge of the household, forcing the humiliated master to do laundry, mend socks, and clean dishes until he recognizes his cruelty. Carl Theodor Dreyer's exquisite, naturalistic silent domestic comedy of manners featuring realistic, functional apartment interiors.