Vargtimmen (The Hour Of The Wolf) (1968)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
My first response after watching Ingmar Bergman's late 60's take on the Horror Film, is "wow". The words I would use to describe it are many of the same ones that I use time and time again in my most positive reviews: surreal, dreamlike, atmospheric. It's thrilling to see the elements of Horror in use by a master of cinema. In short, this is a great scary movie.
The film tells the story of a troubled artist (Max von Sydow) who lives with his wife (Liv Ullmann) in an isolated house on a small island. Something terrible has happened, and the story is told to an unseen person (the audience?) by the wife. She speaks directly to the camera. The story is full of darkness, but lacks detail, and we struggle to make sense of whats going on. In flashback we see the couple come to the island early in the season. The artist's work isn't going well, and he thinks some time away from the world will help. At first thing seem to be going well, and the couple seems happy, but that doesn't last long. The artist complains of strange visitors who won't let him get on with his work. He's drawn sketches of them, which he shows to his wife. We don't see the pictures, and this continues throughout the film when his artwork is shown. The characters discus the paintings, but we never see them. One of the visitors is an old woman who always seems about to remove her hat. The artist fears her skin would come off with it. Another visitor has the face of a bird, and the artist is unsure if he's wearing a mask or not. The wife looks scared as she listens to her husband's ramblings. It seems more likely to her (and us) that her husband is going mad. That is until an old woman shows up at the house, and tell the wife, her husband mustn’t sketch any more pictures. The old lady also tells the wife where to find her husbands diary, and suggests she read it.
The diary tells of meeting a number of strangers, but also of having an affair with one of them. The wife keeps this to herself at first. When the artist arrives home he informs his wife that they have been invited to dinner by Baron Von Merkens, at his castle on the other side of the island. At the castle they meet many of the strangers the artist has spoken of, and they seen human enough, though very strange. As the movie continues it's not entirely clear how much of what happens is real, or in the disturbed mind of the artist. Even those things also witnessed by the wife, are not free from suspicion, as she wonders aloud at one point if she has not caught her husbands neurosis.
This is a wonderful film. Full of bizarre characters played to the hilt by fine actors. The Baron, and his household are like a family of vampires. The psychic kind, if not blood suckers. Every scene at the castle is filled with perverse malevolence. The ambiguity of the happenings keep us paying close attention. Did the Artist murder a child? Or was that just a nightmare. Was it his mistress that he murdered? None of our questions are fully answered, but that only adds to the richness of the experience.
Bergman does such a fine job at the Horror Movie, my only complaint is that he didn't do more.
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