The Magician

Ingmar Bergman has produced another tantalizing film. Hampered by a scenario (as usual, Bergman's own) that is full of tricks rather than the wisdom of Wild Strauberries or The Seventh Seal, The Magician nonetheless has an impact even greater than these better-written works.

One can atribute this in part to its superb settings and photography, that deepen its mood of terror and melodrama. Bergman's regular designer, P.A. Lundgren, has placed a surrealistic sequence near the film's end, in a claustrophobic attic stacked with canvasses, sculptures, and decayed bits of ornate furniture--an achievement that would have pleased the young de Chirico.

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.

As 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.

The gradual revelation of Vogler's disgust with the world (visually depicted by the carefully-directed progression from impenetrability to utter weariness in his facial expression) occurs while a committee of cynical officials reviews the troupe's act to see whether it is suitable for the towns-folk. The enertainers--a youthful coachman, the cunning and comical manager, Tubal, Vogler's wife disguised as a man, and an old hag who claims to be a witch 200 years old--then go off on their own to adventures both comic and serious, romantic and metaphysical.

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 by the luscious maid (delightfully done, as could be expected, by Bibi Andersson).

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.

The Doctor, like everyone else in the film, is presented as a 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.

Then, there is the film's theme--I found, among many contenders, the conflict between Illusion and Reality most consistently referred to. Bergman seems especially fond of dropping hints that the real danger lies deeper than surface appearance. He emphasizes the unreal disguises of the magician and his wife as one of the reflections of this metaphysical concept--a crude and uninventive metaphor, I find. These admirable, is unoriginal, sentiments appear in a morass of conflicting counter-theories. Accident and the completely gratuitous introduction of the bizarre for mere effect add to the confusion--though they contribute immeasurably to the melodramatic effectiveness of the film. The theme is never handled in a way that suggests Bergman really knows what he thinks about the "real" and the "unreal."

Though it does insist on this shadow-boxing with Symbol and Idea, Bergman's film remains a thrilling experience for its technically perfect rendition of the mysterious. As a work of surface brilliance, The Magician represents Bergman at the zenith of his considerable powers.