Ingmar Bergman Centennial: HOUR OF THE WOLF

Director: Ingmar Bergman

1968, Sweden, 88

Screenwriter: Ingmar Bergman

Cast: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann.

 

(Vargtimmen) The strangest and most disturbing of the films Bergman shot on the island of Fårö, Hour of the Wolf stars Max von Sydow as a haunted painter living in voluntary exile with his wife (Liv Ullmann). When the couple are invited to a nearby castle for dinner, things start to go wrong with a vengeance, as a coven of sinister aristocrats hastens the artist’s psychological deterioration. This gripping film is charged with a nightmarish power rare in the Bergman canon, and contains dreamlike effects that brilliantly underscore the tale’s horrific elements.