Hour of the Wolf

Our early encounters with Johan Borg, played by the enigmatic, Max von Sydow do not encourage our sympathy. The painter seems troubled but boorish with it and something of a bully. Liv Ullmann is wonderful as his long suffering wife, Alma, and really tries to help her husband overcome his illness. This is the reason they are on the (deserted?) island, to give him a chance to overcome his demons. And what demons! For the first half of the film we are about as bemused as Alma as to what is going on with all the various encounters, but as the film progresses we are drawn in further, as is she. The artist overcome by his own creative imaginings or a sick man struggling with his nightmares? Can one tell the difference in the end? As the two main characters finally fall in together, dragging us with them a full blown Gothic melodrama opens up and almost engulfs us all. Most original and horrifying work. I don't know if it was just me but I had to play this with 'hard of hearing' English as I could find no other English track on the DVD.

The painter Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) and his wife Alma Borg (Liv Ullmann) have been married for seven years and are living in an island. Johan is haunted by nightmares of his past. Through his notes in his diary, his wife realizes his madness process. In the end, after living with him for such a long period, she questions her sanity and what is real.

This impressive and disturbing movie about the lost of sanity by a tormented artist is another magnificent work of Ingmar Bergman, again with his favorite actor (Max von Sydow) and actress (Liv Ullmann). A very Gothic and dark horror movie, it is a frightening view of the mind of a mad person. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): 'A Hora do Lobo' ('The Hour of the Wolf')

It's not that scary or disturbing. From some of the comments here on IMDb I was expecting quite a tough film to sit through. It isn't exactly cheery, but I did crack the occasional smile at Bergman's homage to various Horror films. It is as beautifully lit and framed as Persona, and if you like Liv Ullman, and/or Max Von Sydow, you'll want to see this for their very good performances. It is sometimes "Lynch" like, sometimes "Fellini" like, but not nearly as disturbing as say Mulholland Drive. See it if you're a Bergman fan, or if you like movies with a surreal sense. I bought the DVD on Bergman's reputation (I've seen about 25 of his pictures, and loved, around 20 of them). I was not disappointed in the least.

Johan can't escape from traumas past, he's tormented, harrowed, provoked and harassed, his mind is playing tricks, it tortures, taunts, afflicts, leaves him confused, muddled, perplexed and aghast.

A surreal overflowing meltdown, full of symbolism, abstraction and confusion, as the artist Johan Borg struggles to cope with the visions and apparitions that haunt his disturbed being. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman once again present us with characters from the imagination of Ingmar Bergman that exist in an alien world, or at least one most of us are quite unfamiliar with (thank goodness), in a piece of cinema, like so many others from the director, that need revisiting whenever you get the chance, if for no other reason than to see what you missed previously.

"Hour of the Wolf" (1968) is one of my favorite Bergman's films. I place it close to "Persona" to which it is a perfect matching piece. This impressive and disturbing movie about the loss of sanity by a tormented artist is another magnificent work of Ingmar Bergman, the closest to the horror genre he ever directed with his regular actors, Max von Sydow who is amazing as Johan and his Muse Liv Ullmann who is equally compelling as Alma, Jonah's wife. The film takes place on an isolated, windy island where Johan and pregnant Alma moved in hope for Johan to work on his paintings and where he is haunted by nightmares from the past that may or may not be just his dreams. They come to torture him during The Hour of the Wolf which Bergman describes as "the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are more real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The Hour of the Wolf is also the hour when most children are born."

Bergman has always been obsessed and fascinated by the inner demons that imagination can create and like no other filmmaker has explored the deepest mysteries of human soul and mind.

Surrealistic, Gothic and dark horror film, with its magnificent black and white cinematography provided by Bergman's long time friend and collaborator, Sven Nykvist, "The Hour of the Wolf" is a frightening view of the mind of a mad person.

It's been mentioned in more than one comment and I agree that David Lynch might have seen "Hour of the Wolf" more than once and was influenced by it when working on his own dark and surrealistic "Erazerhead".

9.5/10