The Magician (Bergman, 1958): Prince Charles Cinema, 3.45pm
This rarely seen Ingmar Bergman film is being screened from 35mm and is also being shown at the Prince Charles Cinema on April 10th and May 8th. Full details here.
Time Out review:
Widely underrated, probably because of its strong comic elements and a tour-de-force
scene derived from horror movie conventions, Ingmar Bergman's chilling
exploration of charlatanism is in fact one of his most genuinely
enjoyable films. Max Von Sydow is the 19th century magician/mesmerist
Volger, on the run with his troupe from debts and charges of blasphemy,
whose diabolical talents are put to the test by the cynical rationalist
Dr Vergerus (Gunnar Björnstrand); their clash results in humiliation, doubt,
and death. Much of the film is devoted to wittily ironic sideswipes at
bourgeois hypocrisy; more forceful, however, is the way Bergman
transforms Volger's ultimately futile act of revenge into a sequence of
nightmarish suspense.
Geoff Andrew
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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