Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Ben Parker Disappointing after Shame, which was near-perfect. Clearly an experiment to break the third wall in a Bergman film, just not at all something I wanted from a Bergman film. I like to be completely absorbed in the reality of the situation. An improvised dinner-party scene where the actors bandy about miscellaneous pretentious ideas, mockumentary moments where "Liv Ullman" and "Max von Sydow" are interviewed about the characters just didn't work for me. I had to turn it off. Will try again at a later date maybe, but I've only just started finding Bergman films I love, this was not a good choice...There were scenes I liked, but then I'd get dragged out of the spell by the mockumentary scenes, very strange.4/10

filmalamosa The whole purpose of this film is character studies of four neurotic adults and their dysfunctional relationships. The late 1960s produced tons of this type #!%!. Whose afraid of Virginia Wolfe etc etc etc... All these movies do is make me realize how innocent and normal I am after all. They are all praised to high heaven by every brainless sycophant out there.The gist of the story is an unhappy affair that develops between a self delusional woman Anna (Liv Ullman)--who may have killed her husband by driving a car off the road-- and a loner Andreas (Von Sylow) who has been in prison for writing bad checks. There are two other main characters an architect and his wife who spin their neuroses right along side those of the two main protagonists. A subplot involves someone killing maiming and torturing animals--great fun.It gets one extra star for Von Sylow's wonderfully expressive eyes.I watched this thing through...my main thoughts at the end were who killed and tortured the animals? Was it Andreas? or Anna?? neither?? Were animals actually sacrificed for this stupid movie?Regret watching this movie Bergman or not... it leaves me with absolutely nothing except the memory of the killed animals and some messed up adults.If you are masochistic and want to mentally slice and dice and analyze neurotic unappealing people and watch scenes of mutilated animals be my guest.But if you want to be entertained and uplifted avoid this like the plague.

success-9 This is probably my favorite Bergman film in color I can think of at the moment. Fanny and Alexander is the only other color film of his I've seen and I didn't see all of that one. In black and white cinematography, the goal is to emphasize motion, as well as the expressive emotional use of light and dark. Thus for example in Hour of the Wolf a couple of years prior to this film, you have a striking long shot of Sydow and Ullmann, two diminutive figures on the horizon, silhouetted and walking dejectedly across the rocky landscape of their desolate island.The passion may be one of Bergman's first color films. I know the previous two films in his Island Trilogy (Persona and Hour of the Wolf are in B&W.) But anyway, its interesting to see what he tries to accomplish with color. The cinematography here is gorgeous and makes the somber proceedings interesting visually. This is definitely the best and furthermore the least pretentious of the Island Trilogy, save the conceit of having the actual actors break in to comment on the film at points.The film very much celebrates the simple pleasures of life, juxtaposed as they are against depression, boredom, etc. Its very appealing to me for some reason, that Sydow, on this desolate island, finds an urbane and wealthy couple who befriend him and invite him over to their comfortable home for dinner. (The gorgeous Bibi Andersson especially "befriends" him, and her husband doesn't seem too concerned.) Spoiler Alert: Although these really are not spoilers and the film never blatantly asserts the following to be true, clearly you are supposed to suspect strongly that they could be true. But for whatever reason they have seemed to elude all the other reviewers here. OK here they are: Liv Ullmann is the one killing all the animals. Clearly. Or maybe not. Also - Sydow seems to have killed his previous wife. But anyway once you see the film implying these things (primarily in the closing act in the heated argument between Sydow and Ullman and what follows) the film demands repeated viewing to sift out the clues earlier in the film. And I have watched this film repeatedly and will do so again.

lawrence_elliott This movie captures the essence of the brooding Northern Germanic man. A sullen almost depressing piece, the truth displayed in this film is startling. This psychological drama probes four interesting characters.Max Von Sydow tries to hide from life by isolating himself on a remote island. His longing for social contact driven by his sexual needs propel him into an affair with his architect neighbour's wife and an eventual tragic relationship with a widow played by Liv Ullmann.A montage of interviews with the four main actors about the roles that they are playing are interspersed throughout the film giving an immediacy to the sense of mood and truth in this cinematic effort.Bibi Andersson is sensual in her role as is Liv Ullmann, who is at her loveliest. This movie speaks more truth about the desperation in peoples' lives than most.A brilliant effort worth seeing over and over.