A fascinating picture from a very fascinating director. So much so that with the end comes an awakening that we the audience are indeed props in one of Bergman's shows, and that can never be a bad or even an accessible thing. But really this is all about tricks and ideas relating to magic and its blending in with reality. With Gunnar Bjornstrand and Ingrid Thulin particularly standing out. As is normally the case under the master director, the cast are uniformally strong. The mysterious wonder of it all is naturally aided by Bergman's use of light and shadowy trickery, symbols loom heavy without dampening the theme on offer, with nothing of course actually quite being as it seems. Taking two factors that he very much adored, masks and magic, Bergman threads them off into various directions, and in the process testing us the audience as to just what to expect from the story. ![]() And whilst it does find Bergman more easy to understand for the casual viewer, it's however still complex enough to thrill and niggle the mind in equal measure. There is a belief amongst many Ingmar Begman fans that Ansiktet (The Magician) is far too accessible a piece to be considered one of his greatest pieces. Hoping to expose all involved in the theatre as charlatans, the disbelievers request a personal show before allowing the show to go public. Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater rolls into town and is promptly summoned for a meet with the town big wigs. It was not great but well acted and not the least bit depressing. He gets far more than he bargains for-that's all I really want to say-otherwise it might ruin the suspense. One of the officials is a cold and rather nasty doctor who longs for a chance to do an autopsy on the hypnotist. ![]() It sounds gross, but I thought it was actually kind of funny. I especially liked the portion of the movie about the autopsy. How this traveling group deftly survives this encounter is the main focus of the movie. Bergman really doesn't try to resolve this issue, but instead shows how the town officials are really rather petty and mean people. When they arrive at a Swedish town, they are forced to come to an audience with the local official and his cronies who want to prove that the act is a fraud. The story is about a traveling group of hoaxters who put on a show combining magic and "animal magnetism" (i.e., an early name given to hypnosis). ![]() Because of this, they may be more approachable to the average viewer who would balk at the much more serious tone of such classics as Through a Glass Darkly (deep depression), Persona (mental illness), Autumn Sonata (repressed anger and abandonment), The Seventh Seal (death and the plague) or Fanny and Alexander (child abuse and emotional neglect). Well, starting in the 1960s to the 1980s, these were the main themes of his movies, but in some of his earlier films, these are not so pervasive-such as the movies The Devil's Eye (a comedy) and The Magician ("Ansiktet"). I've seen a lot of Ingmar Bergman films and sometimes I don't want to see one of his films about death or mental illness.
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