Hour of the Wolf
1968 ‘Vargtimmen’ Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Synopsis
An artist in crisis is haunted by nightmares from the past in Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, which takes place on a windy island. During "the hour of the wolf" - between midnight and dawn - he tells his wife about his most painful memories.
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Considered Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, an examination of the familiar idea of the tortured artist, Hour of the Wolf benefits from long-time lenser Sven Nyquist's beautiful and eerie black and white photography, and great performances from Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman.
It contains several tropes that occupied Bergman around this time:
It's set on a small windswept island; like Persona Bergman seems intent on hammering home the artifice on screen (you can hear the construction of sets over the title screens and Bergman calling instruction); long monologues to camera; fractured psyches.Bergman uses these tropes in conjunction with the feel of classic German expressionism and 30's Hollywood horror. There is a palpable sense…
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Ein kunstvoll arrangierter Albtraum, dessen Form und Inhalt eine gelungene Einheit bilden.
Ingmar Bergmann ist mit diesem surrealen Kunstwerk auf dem besten Weg in die Liste meiner Lieblingsregisseure. -
This is a quite baffling movie. It has all a horror movie needs. A twisted mind, disturbing events and a haunting soundtrack. It is almost without any music, but the music turning up in the most dramatic scenes made the movie even more disturbing.
The plot focuses on an artist (Johan Borg) who is haunted by his demons and disturbing illusions. He finds himself on the thin line between madness and genius or imagination and reality and is drifting more and more into the dark. Alma, his wife, is desperately trying to help him and even follows her husband in his inner world, where she shares some of his hallucinations. They also moved to a secluded house somewhere on a…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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The closest Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman ever came to directing a true horror film, the darkly troubling masterpiece, 'Hour of the Wolf'.
'The Hour of the Wolf', as told by protagonist Johan, is the fabled 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. The Hour of the Wolf is also the hour when most children are born."
It is in this blackest hour that horror awakens in Johan. He sits all night with his anxious wife counting down the seconds until the freedom of dawn can bring the release of sleep. It is during these long nights that he explains the…
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Ingmar Bergman's only horror movie is a horror movie in the same way Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy" is, which is to say it's really more of a psychological thriller cum drama with horror elements in which the point is to watch someone lose their shit while you wonder which parts are real and which are imagined. The reason for this seemingly useless bit of pedantry is to hopefully clear things up for those expecting something steeped in horror tropes from one of cinema's titans. It's not some dumbed down gateway into the the world of classic Swedish cinema; it's just as challenging as the majority of Bergman's filmography.
While primarily a psychological thriller/drama, what differentiates this from films like Repulsion is…
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Wow. I have to admit I was sleepy eyed during the first half hour of this deliberately paced shocker but by the last half hour I was completely riveted. I will say I had no idea the kind of visual maestro Bergstrom could be, the haunting and sometimes terrifying imagery coupled with masterful editing brought the story of a painter going mad and the wife who empathizes with him too closely to terrifying life. The final twenty minutes are a study in horror. A very pleasant surprise for this chiller buff.
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Bergman has always had some messed up films with psychological conditions tormenting his characters. This is a time where he let the camera become afflicted with the same level of madness. That flashback where Max von Sydow got his "snake bite" is pretty darn crazy as well as such a creepy look at the forest and other such breakdowns.
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Considered Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, an examination of the familiar idea of the tortured artist, Hour of the Wolf benefits from long-time lenser Sven Nyquist's beautiful and eerie black and white photography, and great performances from Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman.
It contains several tropes that occupied Bergman around this time:
It's set on a small windswept island; like Persona Bergman seems intent on hammering home the artifice on screen (you can hear the construction of sets over the title screens and Bergman calling instruction); long monologues to camera; fractured psyches.Bergman uses these tropes in conjunction with the feel of classic German expressionism and 30's Hollywood horror. There is a palpable sense…
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Hour of the Wolf is a difficult film to take in. It's extremely surreal and only gets more increasingly bizarre as the events unfold. There are times when Bergman gets very personal, and I started to feel a certain attachment to Hour of the Wolf. But then the film got all crazy again, and it took me out of the moment. (I know I usually love crazy, but it's just different with Hour of the Wolf.) I realize I'm not endearing myself to film purists by criticizing this Bergman film, but what can I say? I wasn't the biggest fan of The Virgin Spring either (I did like it, I just didn't love it), so maybe our styles just don't mesh. Granted, there's still a world of Ingmar Bergman films out there for me to discover, so I guess I won't write off our relationship just yet.
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A masterpiece. Amazing mood, amazing pacing, every frame is a high-contrast work of art. One of the most beautiful examples of black and white photography I’ve ever seen. I loved it, loved it, loved it. Spooky as hell.
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A 'minor' work from master Bergman, and yet, one that is remarkable. An style exercise more than anything else, but deep inside remains the subtext. It reminded me of a great masterpiece from Bergman, Persona, in the way of narrating the intricate relationship between 2 troubled characters. But the dramatic intensity of Persona is replaced by a gritty, bleak, psychotic, nightmare-like atmosphere as harrowing and challenging as it can be.
Definitely not Bergman's most accessible (don't start here with his filmography), but amazing nonetheless. His seal is there, its juxtaposition of discordant/heavy music with horrific imagery is fantastic. And his way to narrate it without a certain sense of reality, not knowing for sure what is there or what is inside the character's heads, is just a brilliant mind-fuck.
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Ingmar Bergman's only horror movie is a horror movie in the same way Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy" is, which is to say it's really more of a psychological thriller cum drama with horror elements in which the point is to watch someone lose their shit while you wonder which parts are real and which are imagined. The reason for this seemingly useless bit of pedantry is to hopefully clear things up for those expecting something steeped in horror tropes from one of cinema's titans. It's not some dumbed down gateway into the the world of classic Swedish cinema; it's just as challenging as the majority of Bergman's filmography.
While primarily a psychological thriller/drama, what differentiates this from films like Repulsion is…
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Hour of the Wolf is a Bergman horror. But being Bergman there is a lot more angst and problems with relationships than that. To say Hour of the Wolf is minor Bergman is not to do it a disservice. There is terrific stuff here and the bar is raised so high for his films.
There are echoes of other films here that would make me think that Hour of the Wolf is quite influential. There is a sense of von Trier's Antichrist in the scenes in the forest, touches of Rosemary's Baby in the group of 'friends' close to the couple. Ullman and Von Sydow are excellent in a film that whilst not particularly scary lingers long in the mind afterwards.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.