A sort of existential horror movie set in what often feels like a darkly imaginary 1846, The Magician is Ingmar Bergman's meditation on the restrictive nature of modern rationalism. Max Von Sydow cuts a suitably melancholy and mystical figure as Dr Vogler, the mute hypnotist who travels with a group of players to Stockholm, only to be examined and humiliated by a team of sceptical inquisitors led by Gunnar Bjornstrand's Dr Vergerus and a hog-like police chief. Dr Vogler exacts his revenge on Vergerus, however, in an extraordinary feat of illusion.With its elaborate,... occasionally expressionistic sets and its feel of a scrupulously re-enacted nightmare, The Magician is reminiscent at times of Poe or even The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. However, the "below stairs" characters--including Ake Fridell's ebullient Master of Ceremonies and a host of giggling wenches--add comic energy to what is otherwise a startling and sombre reflection of the nature of art and life. It would prove a turning point in Bergman's career as he moved away from his early, "romantic" period.On the DVD: Presented in the original academy ratio, the mix of soft light and harsh shade for which credit should go to photographer Gunnar Fischer, is well-restored here. In notes from his memoirs included here, Bergman relates how his adventures and privations as part of a theatre company in Malmo provided inspiration for The Magician, while critic Ronald Bergman's notes talk of "the ability of the artist to find truth in both fact and fantasy". --David Stubbs [show more]
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Max von Sydow plays a 19th century mesmerist who is charged with blasphemy and questioned by the authorities, in an attempt to prove him a fraud. Ingmar Bergman directs. Also availalbe as part of an Ingmar Bergman Collection.
An elegant follow-up to Bergman's acclaimed WILD STRAWBERRIES, THE MAGICIAN is set in Sweden in the mid-1800s and stars Max von Sydow as the mysterious Albert Vogler, of Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater, a magician and spiritualist who is en route with his troupe--including Vogler's wife, disguised as a young man (Ingrid Thulin); an old crone who peddles herbal remedies and love potions (Naima Wifstrand); and an overbearing manager (Ake Fridell)--to a small town where they are hoping to give a lucrative performance. The group is unexpectedly detained, however, in the home of a prominent citizen, where a skeptical doctor (Gunnar Bjornstrand) challenges Vogler to give a demonstration of mesmerism and prove that he does in fact possess supernatural powers.Although Bergman thought of THE MAGICIAN as a comedy, its more menacing moments are reminiscent of the horror and suspense films of the silent era. Alternately somber and lighthearted, this esoteric treatise on the nature of truth and illusion should appeal to all moviegoers with a taste for cerebral cinematic fare.
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