Hour of the Wolf.

Review #1427: Hour of the Wolf.

Cast: 
Max von Sydow (Johan Borg), Liv Ullmann (Alma Borg), Gertrud Fridh (Corinne von Merkens), Georg Rydeberg (Lindhorst), Erland Josephson (Baron von Merkens), Naima Wifstrand (Old Lady with Hat), Ulf Johansson (Heerbrand), Gudrun Brost (Gamla Fru von Merkens), and Ingrid Thulin (Veronica Vogler) Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman (#777 - The Seventh Seal)

Review: 
"I think we are the sum of what we have read, seen and experienced. I do not think artists are born from emptiness! I am a small stone of a tall building, I depend on each element of the building, next to, above, below."

It never hurts to reach for someone who wants to question the human condition with films. Ingmar Bergman was most certainly a director with enough ambition and detail to accomplish films that have lingered as iconic for Swedish cinema. He had a troubled childhood under strict parenting and unhappy school years, but he developed an interest in the theater and film from an early age, most notably when he acquired a magic lantern (an early type of image projector). Studies in university were mostly dominated by theater and film-watching, and he eventually found himself rewriting scripts for film that led to his true screenwriting debut with Torment (1944) and his eventual directorial debut with Crisis (1946). Bergman felt that art had to expose humiliation and how we as beings do it to each other, since it is "one of the most dreadful companions of humanity, and our whole social system is based to an extent on humiliation." Over the course of nearly sixty years, Bergman would work on numerous films (with all but the last four being for television) that have received notice (from directors past and present to winning three Academy Awards for Best International Film), ranging from Wild Strawberries (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), and Fanny and Alexander (1982).

The original script (known as "The Cannibals") had been done in 1964, but he later revised the script after a bout of pneumonia made him think of the budget it would take to execute it. Instead, he did the film Persona (1966), but he eventually re-worked the script, which would take inspiration from works such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (which Bergman would later adapt into a film in the following decade) alongside Bergman's own nightmares. It is a film that threatens to unravel before one's very own eyes in self-destruction for the artist and in a way the audience. How long can it be before one's creativity starts to turn into madness, particularly if one can't sleep (as is the case for night owls like myself). It is a Gothic nightmare that accomplishes a good deal of what it wants to do in Bergman's own manner that segues into psychological horror. Whether it is reaches you on a level that inspires chills is up to how much patience one has with its moments into surreal territory that seems at times like a retelling of the vampire legend (Bergman was an admirer of Dracula (1931), incidentally). If one is looking for a straight story in 88 minutes, this may not be the one for you. If viewed on its own terms as something to pick apart like a surgeon on the table or an artist looking upon what they have created and having it look back on them, then this works itself out quite nicely. In terms of acting, von Sydow and Ullmann make up our primary focus for the film and each do fine with what they are given, since both each worked with Bergman ten times (this, along with Shame (1968) and The Passion of Anna (1969) are argued by some to be a trilogy involving violence upon ordinary lives and guilt). One shouldn't be surprised to hear this about von Sydow, who was quite versatile in playing heroes and villains in both European and American cinema in over seven decades of work. In this, he makes quite a contemplative focus in terms of a tortured artist, one with plenty of brooding conviction in his dealing with the real and unreal involving demons and insomnia. Ullmann, the Norwegian actress of international fare and along with eventual director of her own films, accompanies our focus as the other side of the coin with von Sydow in her own type of despair and struggle in trying to keep herself intact from falling off the edge, beginning and ending the film with poignancy. The others do fine in accompanying the quiet terror that builds in garnering curiosity in a subtle haunt. The sequence involving von Sydow and a kid, a involving overexposed photography is likely the most memorable part, at least if one isn't going with just images, which could involve a ceiling or a sequence with a little person in the closet. On the whole, this is a film with plenty of despair as a sketch upon the things that haunt us in and out of our dreams when it comes to creativity and the encompassing companionship that one tries to seek out (or vice versa) to alleviate the creature that lurks in the dark of humiliation in the hour of birth and death. It may require a bit of patience to push it forward, but it is generally a fair piece by Bergman with enough curiosity factor to make it a good sell for world cinema to view at least once.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.