a group of people is touring the countryside in a coach. they include a purported magician (max van sydnow), his wife/assistant, an old crone who they refer to as grandmother and who gives an impression of practicing witchcraft and a merry, complacently fat coachman. on the way they encounter a man who is dying of alcoholism, who stirs up some deep feelings in the magician. when they reach a city, the man dies and they fall in the clutches of the city magistrate on account of this and other matters. the elite of the city bands together to watch the magician's magic show. they mock the magician cruelly, accusing him of being a charlatan, a fake. after the show, the magician plays a series of tricks on the parties, which scares the hell out of them, and makes it seem like supernatural forces are present among them. but, in the end, his tricks are revealed and in an astonishing moment, the magician forgetting all his dignity and composure, grovels for a few kronor's (dollars). not getting even a single kronor, they are threatened with jail if they don't get out of town immediately and henceforth continue on their journey. many people do not get this movie, given that the artist/magician is shamed at the end. but that pivotal scene is totally misunderstood...bergmann's movie's work on many levels and that which is presented plainly is often the least plain, much like the magician's magic. the magician/artist is correctly depicted as being unsure of whether he really is an artist or a fake. the conflict within him is part of being a real artist. bergmann's point was that art and magic are similar. illusion is but a feint, a parry in a different direction, while the audience is lured unsuspecting into a bigger trap, which when revealed is devastatingly powerful in what it says about their psyche. the magician's magic is concerned not with tricks but with subtle psychological manipulation. when the extent of his psychological grasp is revealed in the end, he is immediately hated, because he understood his audience better than themselves. their whole mirage of being the superior scientific elite is shattered. about the only complaint one could make about this movie is that the magician is overly tormented. as in other bergman movies, one wonders what is the source of this torment. while it could be explained, it's best to enjoy this additional hue to the wonderful masterpiece, that is this movie, and let it percolate in your psyche. it goes without saying that the performance of the actors was superb, really exemplary. as was the cinematography. you will not see better cinema than this.
Review of The Magician
