Very well executed

A lot of fun.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Director Ingmar Bergman's familiarly bleak and windswept isolated island (Baltrum) is the retreat of artist Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) who is recovering from an unspecified illness. His pregnant wife Alma (Liv Ullman) loyally and sensibly looks after him and oversees such necessities as finance and food, whilst Borg lapses into a dream-world where he sees 'demons' - strange people who resemble people he has known. Before long, Alma too sees someone, an old lady, who may or may not be real, who advises her to read Johan's diary, which reveals one of his 'demons' is former lover, Veronica (Ingrid Thulin).I found 'Hour of the Wolf' a little ponderous. Bergman's films are often exercises in introspection, but this is too uneventful: we know Johan is facing some sort of breakdown, and yet events are merely there to prove it to us again and again. Only an incident at a party - seemingly attended by 'demons' - stands out amongst the surreal mirages painted on Bergman's typically desolate canvas. The acting is never less than intense, with Von Sydow in particular tuning into the director's wavelength. Ullman, too, is sympathetic as loving protector Alma, who has some dialogue midway about wanting to be with her husband for such a long time that she begins to think like him. In the final coda, she ponders that if she was *less* like him, perhaps she could have protected him better.I wouldn't say 'Hour of the Wolf' is less interesting than it thinks it is, rather that the situation and characters don't have quite the resonance with me that those in some of Bergman's other projects have.

A movie is supposed to be allegorical and fictitious to a degree, in fact that's the idea, but with Hour of The Wolf the viewer is utterly subjected to the dissociation of a plot that is permeated with surrealism beyond any meaningful deliverance of ideas and message. It is quite a tricky task to successfully capture the essence of subliminal intentions and convey them to the audience in a comprehensive and meaningful way, be it dubious or not. Yet there are some artists who succeed at it, one being David Lynch. That is not to say that I'm tossing this film into the shredder, there certainly are people who'd appreciate it more than I did. It perhaps is not my cup of coffee, because, for one thing, I didn't get anything out of it. I scrounged a VCR tape of the film off a friend a long time ago, and I'm glad that I did. At least I saved those few bucks for something else I could actually enjoy, like bag of noodles.

***SPOILERS*** Said to be Ingman Bergmans most confusing as well as personal project "Hour of the Wolf" has to do with this Swedish painter Johan Borg, Max Von Sydow, who's losing it because of things real and imaginary that he did in his past that are now catching up with him. These things that Johan did manifests themselves to him in a series of dreams that he writes down, in words and drawings, in his secret diary that he keeps from even his wife Alma,Liv Ullmann, who's pregnant with the couples first child. It was in fact Alma who was tuned in on her husband's diary by this 216 year old senior citizen, Niama Wifstrand who showed up at the couples house with the good or better yet bad, for Johan, news.With Johan's cover as a paranoid as well as homicidal lunatic being blown he goes into a deep depression where he cuts himself off from all humanity. We get to see Johan slowly turning into a zombie like individual in a number of episodes where he attends parties and orgies with the local population as well as him reunites with his old flame, said to be dead, Veronica Volger, Ingrid Thulin, whom he meets in what looks like the county morgue. The shock of Volgar coming back to life was what really drove poor Johan nuts as well, from what I could make out in the films final scene, to his death or murder by the locals who in fact were at times more crazier then he was. Were also shown where Johan admitted to his shocked wife Alma that the bite he has on his neck was not that of a snake but by a little boy, possibly a vampire, who attacked him while he was fishing by the shore whom he in return brutally murdered by smashing his skull in with a rock!****SPOILERS**** We finally get to see Johan get what's coming to him when the village people hunt him down and work him over for the crimes that he committed on and off the island where he spent most of his time painting. Alma for her part didn't seem to miss her husband in not only feeling that he got what he deserved but that now with him out of the way she can go on with her, as well as soon to be born child's, life without any fear of him freaking out and making both their lives miserable. Only worth watching as well as suffering through if your a die in the wool Ingmar Bergman fan and willing to put up with his manic depression that he puts into almost all the films that he wrote and directed: If not watch at your own risk!

Although to me the narrative style of Alma (Liv Ullman) telling the story of her husband directly to the camera inter-sped with flashback sequences isn't entirely successful, The Hour of the Wolf is a very interesting and beautiful film. Especially to Bergman fans who know quite a bit about events and aspects of his life that had profound effects on him, as many of these events and feelings shape this film. It provides a valuable insight into Bergman's state of mind at the time, the insane Johan Borg (Max Von Sydow) being the character with the most biographical elements.There are visual sequences that literally knock one backward such as a sublime sequence in which Johan is fishing and only the ocean can be seen behind him, the ocean's surface appears as if erratically shaking, one is forced to see this as an expression of the turmoil within his mind as he hallucinates with devastating results in this sequence. Nevertheless I have never seen water look like that on film before, two collaborative masters at work no doubt (Sven Nykvist and Ingmar Bergman).The editing in some sequences is also absolutely incredible, yet when one thinks about it, its so simple but so effective. Some sequences are also completely terrifying and had profound effects on me while viewing.Unfortunately I feel that having viewed contemporary films such as really bad b-grade horror films that take a similar narrative style (as spoken of in first paragraph) affect my liking of the narrative style. Where so many poor contemporary imitations lessen the liking of the original narrative style and technique because one has seen it done so badly before that the technique itself becomes kind of poor.Apart from my problem with the narrative technique and despite that fact that this film is in some ways a departure from how Bergman usually deals with his usual subjects of humiliation, doubt, madness etc. I would recommend this film to any Bergman fan, it's a truly worthwhile fantastic film