Okay, folks. First I'd like to get the big Nordic elephant
out of the way: Oscar-nominated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann is basically Chris
Colfer's face-twin. It was a little distracting.
Alright. On with the review…
I had never seen an Ingmar Bergman movie before
Hour of the Wolf. Everything I knew
about Ingmar Bergman I learned from
Simpsons references and
Bill and Ted's
Bogus Journey. I knew that he was a Scandinavian director who did a bunch
of artsy black-and-white movies and that Woody Allen loved him. I also knew,
almost without a shadow of a doubt, that his movies were not my style. I
pictured long, murky parables about war and death. I pictured beautiful
cinematography and absolute boredom. I didn’t picture horror movies. And yet,
here I am, writing about an Ingmar Bergman movie in my horror blog.
Hour of the Wolf,
from what I could tell, is about a pregnant woman and her older husband who
live on an island. The husband is slowly getting crazier and crazier because of
his interactions with the island's other residents, a castle full of wack-jobs,
including a woman that he fooled around with before knocking up his current
wife. This guy is pushed to the edge by the surrounding characters, and his
wife is becoming increasingly afraid that she’s starting to share her husband’s
psychosis. I’m not going to continue explaining the plot, because it isn’t exactly
linear, so let’s instead talk about how I might interpret some of the events of
this story.
ONE: The husband is a
crazy artist who has retreated to this isolated island to be alone. He lashes
out at everyone he meets (including the little boy on the beach) because of
some intense distrust of the outside world. He has his pregnant wife to cling
to, but when he finally lashes out at her (he shoots her), that’s the final
straw and he cracks, disappearing forever into himself.
TWO: None of the characters are real except for the husband
and wife. The husband has elaborate delusions about the strange people he
meets. Slowly, his wife begins to see them too. When one of these delusions
gives him the gun he uses to shoot his wife, then his psychosis has finally
crossed into a level where he can no longer be cured. At the end of the movie,
his wife talks about a scar that the bullets left on her, thus implying that not
only is she now damaged by her husband’s psychosis, but now she’s fully
succumbed to it, too.
I could go on discussing about a dozen theories that try to
tie together all the loose ends and abrupt moments of violence (and
cross-dressing). In fact, that’s probably what Bergman wanted. But I’m of the
mindset that reviews aren’t about interpretations, they’re about
recommendations. Did I enjoy this movie? Was I intrigued instead of confused?
Would I recommend this? I think I’d say yes to all three questions.
This is a difficult movie, one with characters that don’t really
behave like real people and situations that don’t quite gel. Intellectually, I’m
frustrated. Emotionally, I’m highly pleased. This movie kept me surprised, tense,
and weirdly curious. The dinner scene at the castle… the violent outburst with
the little kid… the laughing ex-girlfriend corpse lady… these were moments that
will probably stick with me for a while. As a whole, I prefer my movies to be a
little more straight-forward than this, but that doesn’t stop me from
appreciating how unsettling everything comes across.
Is this a horror movie
? Sure. I have
a fairly inclusive definition of horror. Everything from
Jaws to
Rosemary’s
Baby to
Silence of the Lambs fits under the umbrella. This is psychological. It’s
a lot like 2010’s Antichrist without all that squicky gore. Is it wall-to-wall
scary? Nope. But I think this one
will linger with me.
