Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) | Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann | The Not So Innocents. DVD Features...

Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) | Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann | A deconstruction of the classic horror film--and still creepy!

DVDs:

Hour of the Wolf (...

	Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann MGM (Video & DVD), 2004 average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

The delicate, dangerous line between genius and insanity is brilliantly plumbed in this haunting film from Ingmar Bergman that's "a dazzling flow of surrealism, expressionism and full-blooded Gothic horror" (The Observer). Haunted by demons past and present, artist Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) fights a losing battle to retain his sanity and maintain his artistic prowess. His wife Alma (Liv Ullmann), desperate to help him, finds herself starting to share his hallucinations. But as Johan's mind continues to unravel, Alma is forced to choose between her love and her life.

for more information click here

The Not So Innocents. DVD Features Below.

What is the hour of the wolf? "It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are more real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The Hour of the Wolf is also the hour when most children are born." This is one of the conversations artist Johan Borg has with his wife Alma by candlelight in their home on the windy deserted island whose only neighbors are a family of perverted ghosts living in a castle.
In other stories Johan tells of when he was a boy and how his parents punishment was to lock him in a closet only before letting him know of the little man that lived in their that eats toes and describes as he climbed in terror from the sounds of the man. He tells of the old woman from the castle and how when she takes off her hat her face comes of with it (this we will see). Johan also confides to Alma of the time when he was fishing and the boy he killed in a rage. These conversations take place while both struggle to stay awake till the sun rises for fear of what will happen once the candles die out and the nightmares that await. At one point Johan keeps lighting a match in front of his face as he talks which is very eerie and effective.
The film and what I have described is about Johan losing his sanity as an artist trying to regain his greatness. We are guests to his nightmare and like Alma are confused of what is true and what are hallucinations. I would suggest to not try and make sense of the film but allow it to seep into the deeper areas of your mind. I found it somewhat confusing after viewing but the images and the eerie feeling it left me with stayed.
This is said to be Bergman's first horror film but I found The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection and deaths pursuit to have elements of horror.
DVD SUPPLEMENTS
The Search for sanity featurette - On Camera interviews with Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson - Audio commentary by Bergman biographer Marc Gervais - Bergman at work and hour of the wolf photo galleries - Original theatrical trailer.

for more information click here

A deconstruction of the classic horror film--and still creepy!

In many an interview, Bergman remarked that he wanted to keep pushing the envelope in his film-making, trying new techniques, new ideas, new modes of expression. "Personae" is perhaps his best-known experiment. But "Hour of the Wolf" ought to rank up there as well, although it's not typically given the credit for experimental film it deserves.

The beauty of "Hour" is that on the surface it's a gothic thriller that genuinely puts the viewer on seat's edge with its sheer creepiness. Are the demons haunting Johan real or projections of his crumbling psyche--or both, in some fuzzy Jungian sense? It's not at all clear, which only adds to the film's uncanniness. Sven Nyqvist's use of heavy shadowing in his camera work accentuates the unworldliness of the strange characters at Castle von Merkens. The famous scene between Johan (Max von Sydow) and the demon boy is truly unnerving.

But at the same time that Bergman is scaring us, he's also deconstructing the formulaic Hollywood horror film genre in which "Hour" seems to belong. As the opening credits are rolling, for example, we hear Bergman shouting set directions, as if to remind the audience that this is only a movie. He quotes scenes from Hollywood horror throughout the film, even using as one of his central characters an actor who looks astoundingly like Bela Lugosi of "Dracula" fame. We see all this lampooning--and yet the movie still scares us. In a fantastic way, the film's deliberate ambiguity--is it a horror flick or not?--mirrors the ambiguity of Johan's experiences--are they real demons? And perhaps the answer to both questions is identical: it doesn't matter. What matters is the emotion elicited, the affective response.

A brilliant, layered film.

for more information click here

INGMAR BERGMAN, OPUS 28

***1/2 1968. Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. A painter and his wife who live on an island near the Swedish coast start to see strange people around them. Little by little, the artist loses his grip on reality. Fascinating horror film by the Swedish master who tells us one more time the Dracula myth. But Bergman is nevertheless Bergman and the story can be understood on several levels. Think for instance about the baron's castle, and its circumvolutions, which strangely appears like the double of Johan Borg's brain. Recommended.

Good film

Vargtimmen (Hour Of The Wolf), a 1968 film by Ingmar Bergman, proves the nostrum that even lesser work by a great artist, surpasses the better work of lesser artists, for Bergman can get more from the prosaic, or even nothing, than almost any other director. Almost all the creepiness that a viewer feels watching this film comes from scenes, that in other circumstances, would be banal, even dull. The whole film is a series of small moments, incomplete scenes that fade out, and some blackout sketches, often framed by weird angles and compositions. Ostensibly a meditation on the trite `madness of an artist' theme, with overtones of sexual baseness and vampirism, real and psychic, the film overcomes its horror roots with superb technical screen composition, and a bevy of other cinematic trickery that shows Bergman at the top of his game, although his debt to silent German Expressionism, the Universal horror films of the 1930s, and especially the Val Lewton films of the 1940s, is heavy.... There are several other interesting things in this film, such as the ghoul played by Naima Wifstrand literally removing her face as she takes her hat off, and the fact that we, the audience, never see any of Johan's artwork. Never. He shows it to Alma, and a portrait of Veronica hangs in the castle, but we only see the characters looking at the artwork. A number of reasons could be posited, but impotence, and creative block come foremost to mind, and as posits for why Johan is suffering, they ring a bit more true than some silly guilt he felt over killing himself in self-defense from a murderous little hellion. By never seeing Johan's art, the audience never gets to see what good things Johan was capable of, so as a filmed character study on pure human frustration, recapitulated cinematically, only Martin Scorsese's brilliant The King Of Comedy tops this film, and only Stanley Kubrick's The Shining better illustrates the artistic stillicide of the self into bouts of violence, flagellation and loathing. Is Hour Of The Wolf a great film? No. But, it's very close to being so, and given its characters, points of reference, and narrative arcs, that's a hell of an accomplishment, for this film proves even mediocre Bergman results in an excellent film. If only Steven Spielberg could fail so miserably!

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

products you might be interested in