Word: bergman
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Gunnar Fischer, whose careful attention to photographic composition and perfect focussing has always been an aspect of Bergman's best work, has outdone himself in this film. Most impressive are the atmospheric shots at the film's outset and the ensuing carriage ride through the misty forest, immediately reminiscent of the ride to Elsinore in The Seventh Seal, but richer in texture and detail...
...usual, all of Bergman's actors perform excellently. Max von Sydow, memorable as the Knight in The Seventh Seal, is especially outstanding for his intense portrayal of Vogler, the leader of a group of entertainers who practice Mesmer's "animal magnetism" in nineteenth-century Europe...
Comedy, as in other recent Bergman films, is deftly handled and usually interwoven with the serious. As Tubal vends his "love potion," the old housekeeper is won over by the manager's hilariously cavalier manner, but her impatience for the potion derives, we learn, from her starvation for physical love. Conversely, wit is injected just after a particularly grim section when a drunkard who has been picked up by the troupe dies in their carriage. Nothing in the film, however, is quite so enjoyable as the uninterrupted bucolic clowning during the seduction of the inexperienced, yet swaggering coachman...
...However, Bergman has chosen to emphasize the philosophical overtones in confrontations between the magician, who performs the inexplicable, and the skeptical doctor Vergerius, whose only desire is to perform an autopsy on Vogler to fathom his mysterious powers. These mystic, irrational powers constitute a threat to the Doctor's peace of mind...
...three-dimensional character, who should be motivated by complex, but discernible and plausible psychological impulses. His intense resentment of Vogler's art reflefted in his sententious speeches can only be explained in symbolic terms. However, Vergerius's symbolization is not even barely convincing. He remains a curt cynic despite Bergman's attempt to transform him into a symbol of Rationalism. This injection of the Symbol into highly realistic characters has given Bergman trouble in the past--but never to such an extent...