Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman Quick Links

News Film Quotes RSS

7 Foreign Horror Movie Remakes We'd Love To See


Takashi Miike Ingmar Bergman Guillermo Del Toro

It's just three months away from the premiere of the eagerly anticipated 'Suspiria' remake starring Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton; a film that has deserved a Hollywood makeover since the Italian original by Dario Argento was released back in 1977. 

Of course, it's always touch and go with English remakes of foreign horror movies; will it be critical success like 'The Ring' and 'Let Me In', or will it flop dramatically like 'Quarantine' and 'The Uninvited'? We'll find out soon. Meanwhile, here are 7 other international horror films that ought to see a Hollywood reboot:

AuditionAudition

Continue reading: 7 Foreign Horror Movie Remakes We'd Love To See

Shame Review


Essential
Most of us in America never felt the recent war in Iraq in a tangible, day-to-day way. There are those of us who lost loved ones, of course, but what I refer to here is the daily, nagging toll that war takes on all of those - military and civilian - living in its midst. We do not, say, suffer interruptions in our fresh water supply, nor are we compelled to guard our speech and conduct or to stockpile food and supplies. Part of the genius of Ingmar Bergman's great 1968 film Shame (now available on DVD) is that it brings these stark, quotidian horrors - and those that these escalate into - home to the viewer. That alone would be an achievement, but Shame moves in deeper waters still: It shows, in the bleakest and most uncompromising terms, that the worst that war has to offer is the wounds it inflicts on the human mind. Together with René Clément's Forbidden Games (1952) and Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937), it stands as one of the great pacifist statements of the modern day.

The plot is simplicity itself. The Rosenbergs (played by Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow) are a youngish couple enjoying average happiness on an island that's part of a larger, unnamed country. (The fact that Bergman chooses not to specify the film's setting, nor to clarify the conflict that follows, contributes to the film's surreal yet universal feel.) Both are musicians; they farm a little, too, and they drive their ailing truck into town to sell their produce. It's not an idyllic existence, exactly; the two are not above bickering, for instance, and in their discontented moments they may feel that they've settled for something. But it's essentially (and believably) a happy life.

Continue reading: Shame Review

Wild Strawberries Review


OK
I've never been much of an Ingmar Bergman fan, but I have respect for much of his work. Wild Strawberries is the notable exception, often hailed as his best or second-best work (after The Seventh Seal). I frankly think it's sub-par, overwhelmingly oppresive in its obvious imagery -- crucifixion motifs and non-sequitur dream sequences -- to the point where a legion of film students have been prompted to copycat its overt heavy-handedness for half a century. In fact, I keep thinking about The Big Picture, where the film students have produced such ultra-sensitive tripe but find heaps of praise piled upon them anyway. Presumably, the audience is stunned that it can understand the filmic metaphors they have created, and thus, they must be genius.

Wild Strawberries is exactly this type of film, a short but often unbearable production about an ancient doctor grappling with a death that is just around the corner. He ends up on a road trip, filled with false starts, wrong turns, and fantastic dream/fantasy sequences, all designed for him to confront death and question the existence of God. But nothing is really questioned, it is simply presented as bleak and nasty, with our hero facing the inevitability of a void in lieu of the afterlife. The film does not provoke any questions or debate about either death or God.

Continue reading: Wild Strawberries Review

Faithless Review


OK
Liv Ullman may get the directing credit, but every line in Faithless is stamped Ingmar Bergman (who wrote the script). Between the immoral souls of the characters twitching with desires they can't control and the extended two and a half hours to endure, who else could it be? (Bergman's original Fanny and Alexander was close to six hours long, though the American version is two and a half).

Bergman showed a penchant for family drama with Fanny and Alexander and Wild Strawberries, among others. He enjoys mixing the imaginary world of his characters with their reality. This can lead to a deeper emotional entanglement with the characters; it's human nature to reflect and react based on internalized stimuli. Unfortunately for Faithless, Bergman is revisiting territory he excelled in some 40 years ago, without shedding any new light on his subjects.

Continue reading: Faithless Review

Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman Quick Links

News Film Quotes RSS

Occupation

Filmmaker


Ingmar Bergman Movies

Faithless Movie Review

Faithless Movie Review

Liv Ullman may get the directing credit, but every line in Faithless is stamped Ingmar...

Artists
Actors
    Filmmakers
      Artists
      Bands
        Musicians
          Artists
          Celebrities
             
              Artists
              Interviews