The Magician (Spoilerific Review)

Deception is so prevalent that those who speak the truth are usually branded as the greatest liars.

Just got done watching another solid film by the Swedish master, Ingmar Bergman, and figured I might as well toss up a quickie review while it's fresh in my mind. I've seen a number of Bergman films over the past couple years, and the guy never fails to deliver interesting material. The Magician, his 1958 piece about a troupe of...magicians, is no exception.

The film begins with said troupe (which includes Bergman favorites Max von Sydow and the always mesmerizing Ingrid Thulin) picking up a dying actor in the woods on their way to town to answer for the "supernatural disturbances" they've been reportedly causing. The actor becomes very important in their grand deception later on, ultimately proving their act worthwhile and saving them from punishment by the authorities.

Ingrid Thulin
(the woman who will come back from the dead to be my wife)

I'll skip the plot summary and go right to my thoughts on the most interesting aspect of the movie, the parallels Bergman draws between traditional magic and religion. The magicians here are nothing but entertainers, even con artists, who masquerade a bunch of simple tricks and nonsense as the supernatural. They play on people's desires to believe in these sorts of things and show them what they want to see, ostensibly for power, prestige, and profit. In other words, they're like priests.

The ending initially left me with a "that's it?" feeling, but I soon came to appreciate it after thinking about it for a few minutes. The magicians are stripped down and exposed for the frauds they are, left begging for a small amount of money and compelled to flee town before the authorities can arrest them. But when they fail to make it out in time, they are instead summoned to perform for the king (certainly a step up in their seemingly flagging career). I may be the only one to take it this way, and it probably wasn't Bergman's intent, but I saw this tying back to the priest connection. The magicians, like priests (if you ask me), could arguably be locked up for their cons and frauds. But because the magicians/priests are entertaining the people, showing them what they want to see, and feeding and enabling their fantasies, the magicians/priests are actually rewarded for their deceptions.

You damn fraud...

The curious thing, I guess, is that we're supposed to be happy about all this, as the magicians are positioned as the good guys in the film. The men of science are positioned as the jerks who want to mock and punish the deceivers that everyone else seems so fascinated by. Naturally, given my positions on these matters, I found myself siding with the men of science jerks, especially in light of the religious parallels.

Bergman, of course, was agnostic and frequently dealt with religion and doubt in his work. He was very good at walking the line pretty evenly and allowing for ambiguity and different interpretations. I just glimpsed someone else's mini-review on imdb.com, and he said he saw von Sydow's character as a Christ figure. Man. I didn't see that AT ALL. But that just goes to show how talented Bergman was and how thought-provoking his films always tended to be.

If you like deep stuff and haven't seen Bergman before, check out some of his films. He's sure to impress.