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The artist's face, his humiliations and revenge, Ingmar Bergman takes stock. The stagecoach in the woods might be John Ford's, and there's Max von Sydow like John Carradine with top hat, pipe and inky whiskers. (By his side in male drag, Ingrid Thulin adds a note of Sylvia Scarlett to the mysterious configuration.) "Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater," presently detained at a provincial post and scrutinized by the bureaucratic chimera of bourgeoisie (Erland Josephson), police (Toivo Pawlo) and medicine (Gunnar Björnstrand). A bag of tricks is just that, to evoke emotion is the genuine sorcery, if the emotion is terror then so be it. "Step by step into the darkness, the movement itself is the only truth." Reveal the wires and they're no longer wires, says Godard of Hitchcock, Bergman leads the pedants backstage for the mordant metaphysical unmasking. The glaring conjurer lacerates his own hand in response to flattery from the host's wife (Gertrud Fridh), shorn of disguise he begs for a coin. Loathing his inexplicable nature, Björnstrand's rationalist wants nothing more than to dissect him—he gets his wish in the attic, only to be rattled by a vindictive spook show (eyeball in the inkwell, pounding pendulum, cracked mirror). Love potions for servants and the comedy of anxiety for frauds, plus giddy dread from the witch-granny (Naima Wifstrand) remembered by von Trier ("...a fox with no eyes and a rotten hole for a mouth"). The ruined actor (Bengt Ekerot) lands a good role as a corpse, the grinning skull on the magic lantern lends a pivotal view. "Who was there to judge?" asks Rimbaud. "The critics!" The Rite brutally settles the score, here Bergman is content to wave the auteur's own capricious wand: Downpour and failure into sunshine and triumph, just "an evening's entertainment." With Bibi Andersson, Birgitta Pettersson, Åke Fridell, Lars Ekborg, Sif Ruud, Oscar Ljung, and Ulla Sjöblom. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |