My Favorite Ingmar Bergman Film

I've watched a lot of Ingmar Bergman films, far more than enough to qualify his films for one of these posts, but I've been very hesitant to write about him. Bergman's films, especially his most celebrated works, are contemplative explorations of the human soul, incredibly personal pieces that are at the same time universal. His films commonly deal with death, madness, spirituality, and the nature of human existence. I think it would be inaccurate to describe them as dark, but instead that they carry a particularly strong weight and gravity and seriousness that is rare in cinema. So this is not a topic to be approached lightly. However, it's the dead of January, it's freezing outside, and it's a fitting time for introspection and existential thoughts. It's time to stop putting this off.

My favorite of Bergman's films is "Hour of the Wolf," which I recognize is not remotely his best. That distinction should probably go to the iconic "The Seventh Seal," or perhaps "Persona." However, "Hour of the Wolf" is the Bergman film I find I relate to the most strongly, and think about the most often. I can still easily picture the final shot of the film, the image of Liv Ullman's face peering out of the darkness, speaking her final monologue directly to the audience. She plays Alma, a woman whose husband Johan (Max von Sydow) has disappeared under strange circumstances. The film recounts the days leading up to this event through flashbacks. The couple live in a small, remote house near the woods, where Johan is recovering from some unspecified trauma. He is a chronic insomniac. In the daylight hours, he is repeatedly approached by various odd characters when he is alone, who he believes to be demonic creatures. Later on, Alma and Johan are invited to the household of a local Baron (Erland Josephson), where they witness strange occurrences. As Johan mentally deteriorates, his actions become more and more alarming.

The title, "Hour of the Wolf," refers to the long stretch between midnight and dawn when Johan claims that most babies are born and most deaths occur. It is a familiar time to an insomniac, where there is nothing in the darkness but yourself and the monsters of your own psyche. Because Alma loves her husband and stays up with him through these long nights of darkness, the film suggests that she is better able to appreciate and share in his horror. Eventually she becomes confused as to what is real and what is being imagined by Johan. The film takes no position one way or another as to whether Johan is hallucinating the images he sees, but the implications are quite clear. The demons he faces are personal ones, summoned from the darkness by inescapable forces to be his chief tormenters. They are a real danger to him, even if they are only imaginary, and perhaps they may become a danger to others too.

Like most of Bergman's films, "Hour of the Wolf" is composed of simple, stark images and has few major characters. Johan's monsters are ordinary humans shot in such a way that they appear strange and terrifying. It's amazing the kind of fright that can evoked by simply showing black-and-white images of people's faces, or hearing laughter where none should be. This is one of the few times Bergman presents such horrors so plainly to the audience, including the surreal castle sequences that seem like something out of a Luis Buñuel or Jean Cocteau film. Usually Bergman left such visual nightmares for the viewer to imagine, like the spider creature in "Through a Glass Darkly." However, these sequences are used to terrific effect, and seeing what Johan sees makes his madness more immersive and palpable. This is probably the closest thing Bergman ever made to make a true horror film.

In the end it's the performances that stick with me. Max von Sydow was a Bergman regular by this point, and well-practiced in conveying the desperate internal torment of his characters. Here, he's as captivating and sympathetic as ever. However it is Liv Ullman who proves to be the most a haunting presence. In only her third picture for Bergman, she plays the timid Alma as watchful observer, who becomes unsure of anything but her love for her husband, . As she confesses in the final frames that she fears following Johan into madness, her calm expression is somehow more terrifying than any of the monsters we saw before. It still lingers in my memory, and sums up my experience with the director.

Ingmar Bergman's films are about those thoughts that you have in the dead of night, when you can't sleep, and there's nothing to do but think. He is without a doubt one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived, but one whose work I have learned to tread carefully around.
---