Hour of the Wolf

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Richard B @RichardB12314 2d A movie that can be viewed in many different ways. There are elements of unconscious intuition and habit repetition of a rigid identity. Can a person in a relationship shake off the stigma of their past, like a filmmaker from criticism by his audience? Can love heal the past? The way stigma from the past shames the present person from learning, development, and forgiveness, each later epoch of their lives is HAUNTED by the past. You also get the intimation that lovers don't really know each other until these eruptions bubble up over time as the new relationship develops. To heal shame and move on isn't something that always succeeds. There are symbolic scenes of murderous repression of these memories, childhood wounds, assaults of self-hatred, class shame, and necrophilism towards old dead relationships. There's a lot here. See more Dani G Mar 18 As always, Bergman ahead of its time See more Pierre G 06/14/2024 A fascinating, terrifying film. See more Wayne K 03/12/2024 In a filmography as extensive and acclaimed as Ingmar Bergman's, there's going to be a lot of gems and a few lumps of coal, and for me, Hour Of The Wolf is definitely the latter. It wasn't so long ago that I watched Persona, one of Bergman's best know films, and I loved it. A psychological study of 2 individuals isolated together, finding their very essences becoming crossed and intertwined. HOTW tries to do psychology too, but to much lesser effect. The film does 2 things I've always hated in filmmaking. First of all, the characters, by and large, don't have conversations. Instead, they simply exchange monologues. So one character will prattle on about something, then another will do the same. It feels less like you're watching human beings interacting and more like you're stuck in a lecture with a bunch of smug intellectuals desperately trying to outsmart each other, a similar experience I had with I'm Thinking Of Ending Things. The second problem is our lead character and how his struggle is presented. I don't know why, but some films, or maybe some actors, have a difficult time trying to portray the feeling of being disturbed on screen, and they often just come across as mopey and boring. The film has some powerful scenes but little forward momentum, and the scenes at the castle with the intelligentsia are just tedious and irritating. I wanted to know more about our lead and why he's losing his mind. I wanted to see him being disturbed, wracked by fear, isolation and discontent. Instead, I just got a sad, laconic man that doesn't even look like he wants to be there. I'm very keen to visit more of Bergman's work in the future, but Hour Of The Wolf is one I have no problem leaving behind me. See more Alec B @Alec97 01/09/2024 The autobiographical aspects of the movie are perhaps a little too obvious but the final act is brilliantly surreal. See more Il B 07/10/2023 This is an Ingmar Bergman film and one of his best. Acting, direction, dialogue, themes, score, set design - everything is sublime, pure perfection. I absolutely enjoyed this film for its simplicity and its calmness as the tension grows and grows before the ultimate climax unleashes everything it was building. My only issues with this masterpiece, yes it's a masterpiece, is the pacing. Now, Bergman's films aren't known for their fast pacing, in fact the complete opposite and I have no issue with that. However in this film, there were some sequences, especially during the first half, where I thought it could have been a bit faster, just a bit. Now this being Bergman's first-ever horror film, I'm impressed. This was absolutely phenomenal. The slow burn, the themes, the character developments were absolutely astonishing. Everything worked perfectly as a horror film. In the end I felt like Bergman tried out something that is very popular in today's horror films, I do however feel it was out of place in this film. This film is mostly psychological horror, in this scene however it felt a bit like body-horror, it's a very slight point and it's no big deal. Overall this is a masterpiece and one of the best films ever made. See more Read all reviews

Hour of the Wolf

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