Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf)

I have only recently started watching the brilliant works of Ingmar Bergman. Hour of the Wolf is only his third film I have watched, the others being The Seventh Seal and Through a Glass Darkly.

All three feature the wonderful Max von Sydow, who has worked with Bergman many times. In Hour of the Wolf he portrays the painter Johan Borg. Together with his pregnant wife Alma (played by Liv Ullmann) he spends the summer on a remote island. Over the course of the story he encounters several strange people that either contribute to his descent into madness or are a side effect of it. I assume it is the first, as Alma meets several of them at a dinner party.

This is defined as being drama and horror, the horror stemming from the feeling of claustrophobia the film conveys and Johan's nightmarish vision. The (English) title refers to the time just before dawn, during which many births and deaths occur (according to Johan).

The film is excellent, although for me it does not quite reach the brilliance of The Seventh Seal. My discovery of Ingmar Bergman will definitely not stop here.

7/10