☆"They hate you because they don't understand you. But I do."☆

My Journey into the Films of Ingmar Bergman -- Part 19 of 62

Ansiktet -- literally "The Face," released in English as The Magician -- continues Bergman's run of idiosyncratic genre blends and challenging conventions. Gothic horror, dark wit, and psychological drama come together in this underrated knockout.

Magician Albert Vogler (Max von Sydow) leads a traveling troupe of performers in the 1800s, Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater, each claiming supernatural abilities including his Granny (Naima Wifstrand), wife Manda (Ingrid Thulin), and assistant Tubal (Åke Fridell). Albert himself says he is learned in animal magnetism, or mesmerism. Through the Swedish woods they discover a sickened former vaudevillian, Johan (Bengt Ekerot), whom they take in their carriage as it appears he is dying. Albert watches Johan with intense focus as he seems to pass. When arriving in a village, with some of the leaders there interested in the occult, but the town's Minister of Health Dr. Vergérus (Gunnar Björnstrand) believes Albert to be a dangerous quack. While the town Consul wishes for a private setting of his powers, the rational Vergérus wishes for it to fail spectacularly. What follows is deceit from both parties, a seemingly dead man awoken, and the mysterious "Doctor" Vogler proving illusion is an art and a science.

Magic can be interesting, but I've inherently been turned off by it for years. A person is trying to trick us. They lie and deceive us and we're supposed to applaud and gasp in awe. Fuck that. Your career is based on fooling gullible people. You're no better than a pastor or priest, and we all know how I feel about them.

Nonetheless, fantastic movies have been made about illusionists and magicians, chief among them The Prestige and I will also nominate this film. The Magician is a brilliant shifty Edgar Allen Poe-esque tale of the occult and dark forces in the wrong hands. Olivier Assayas called the picture one of "Bergman’s most enigmatic films, perhaps his underground masterpiece," one which sees the Swedish director create "the mesmerist Vogler, Bergman’s first major self-portrait."

By that, Assayas is talking about illusion and art, but also about personal failings, as Vogler is staged as a mute who has lost faith in his abilities to such a degree that he can only use this veneer to perpetuate the myth. Humiliated by the health minister on arrival, it only shakes his confidence further. Yep, it's another Bergman feature with humiliation and shame as key themes. But a further one is raging jealousy, seen from Vergérus who is incensed of the skill Vogler possesses over others… most especially that of women. Bergman is exorcising demons for sure, feelings of his own inadequacy; like Vogler, he feels like a fraud. We the audience of course know better.

In a film where Von Sydow is kept literally mute for over an hour, he's -- forgive the pun -- mesmerizing. It's part of a tricky mise en scene that mixes comedy and horror tropes with profoundly vivid dramatic moments. Geoff Andrew discusses the whirlwind of genres and mastery of the film craft in this work:

Doubles, echoes, prismatic reflec­tions, and paradoxes abound in The Magician—appropriate for a film about the charlatan nature of creativity that emerged from what Berg­man described as one of the finest times of his life….It uses horror conventions to virtuoso effect, but with tongue carefully concealed in cheek, to expose the illusionistic deceits not only of that genre but of all film, theater, and art. Neither outright comedy nor straight horror, impossible to pin down simply as an art movie or as popular entertainment, The Magician is admirably rich and strange—and that’s probably why it’s seldom given its due.

You should give it its due and watch this wicked feature, coming with a genuinely devilish bit of fright in the superb final act, which even those with an aversion to horror can enjoy with a nervous laugh. Outstanding stuff.

Added to Ingmar Bergman ranked.