1968 Hour Of The Wolf, The (Aka Vargtimmen) 44th

What else happened this year? Riots, riots everywhere. Which changed nothing.

What is the plot - in one sentence? On a Swedish island, an insomniac artist and his harried wife deal with what may or not be visions and hallucinations which plague them.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? It's unclear - perhaps the wife has been shot dead, perhaps just shot once in a graze. He's seemingly abducted by the forces on the island, and she tells of how she watched him deal with demons, and wonders if she'd loved him more, or less, would she have been able to help.

What is the meaning of the title? He very helpfully tells us that it's the hour of the night which is hardest to stay awake for, and the night when most people die, or are most likely to have night terrors. Something similar with witching hour. He's an insomniac, and seems to be most frightened by this hour, also.

Here are the two main characters, he's obsessing over something, she's quietly fretting, neither of them sleep well. They probably wonder why their son doesn't visit very often.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? No, other than the whole haunting thing the only thing which really hasn't aged that well is a shirtless Max Von Sydow drowning a child, he's shirtless and it looks a little more sinsiter than it would have back then. Simpler times. 

Any thoughts? This is a weird, sppoky little movie with a lot of hidden depth behind the ominous atmosphere. It's eveident that this had a large influence on the movie 'The Shining', as it features a couple in isolation, he's an artist, and they're haunted by sinister upper-crust types who may or may not be there). That, and the axe scene being taken almost directly from 'The Phantom Carriage', it's amazing how much of that movie was influenced by Swedish cinema.

There's a lot of ambiguity about who is and isn't there in the movie. Is the wife hallucinating too? Is she a ghost? Is the child that he kills actually there? Is the flashback to his old lover real or not real? It all adds to the atmosphere, which peaks when they attend a very creepy dinner party, and are serenaded by a tiny, living puppet. There are also allusions to the creatures on the island being either werewolves or vampires.

Would you recommend this? Yes, every time I've seen a Ingmar Bergman movie I've been afraid that it'll be too deep and droll, but this was to the point, pretty spooky and pretty entertaining on a superficial level. There's other levels to it too, but those can be ignored or have attention paid to them if you'd like - for example, him being made-up by a Dracula figure suggests what? Allusions to various operas too, suggest something more than the more obvious vampire and werewolf allusions.

Final thoughts? Every time I've been impressed by his work. Every time it's been put off because I'd think it was too intense, and it isn't really - even the seventh seal. I'll check out more, happily.

There you go, 44 down now, the other 43 are here.