Das Schlangenei

I can't quite understand these alleged Bergman "fans" who say that this film is somehow lacking. Whereas "The Serpent's Egg" is not on par with say, "Fanny and Alexander" or even "Scenes from a Marriage," and even though it is, admittedly, not "Bergmanian" in the sense that the director's strength lies in acute insight into the emotional complexities of his characters, it is NOT, in any way whatever, an inferior film. Here we find Bergman writing and directing a film that steps briefly away from his norm. The fact that this film is better than, for comparison, anything from Polanski (who's "element" is the long-winded suspense film) makes it worth much regard. In fact, I am moved to say that "The Serpent's Egg" is a display of writing/directorial versatility that remains unsurpassed to this day.

This being said, no film should really be rated in terms of previous works of its own writer/director. It should be rated in comparison only to other films. Bergman is a superior director and one of the most talented writers at that. Whereas Bergman himself always strove to be better than Bergman, we should be fair for a second and admit that he is almost always better than anyone else.

In November of 1923, in a Berlin where a pack of cigarettes costs four million marks and people has lost faith in the present and future days, the alcoholic and unemployed American acrobat Abel Rosenberg (David Carradine) loses his brother Max, who has just committed suicide after feeling depressed for a period. Seeing the modifications in the behavior of people, but without clearly understanding the reasons, Abel moves to the room of his former sister-in-law Manuela Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann), who works in a cabaret in the night and in a whorehouse in the morning. Together, they move to a small apartment near to the clinic of their acquaintance, Professor Hans Vergerus (Heinz Bennent), who gives a job opportunity to Abel in his clinic. While working in the place, Abel discloses the evil truth behind the researches of Hans.

"The Serpent's Egg" is an underrated, but also excellent work of Master Ingmar Bergman, one of my favorite directors. In the environment of a Germany with hyperinflation, where people in a moment exchanged marks in weight so fast the currency lost its value; lack of job opportunities, with massive unemployment; the great people and nation humiliated and hopeless, paying for the loss of World War I, Bergman presents his view for the seeds of the Nazism. He introduces the evil character of Professor Hans Vergerus and his sick experiments, and the common person Abel Rosenberg, who sees the modifications in a country where he has problems with communication, since he does not speak German, but can not understand. Unfortunately this movie has not been released on DVD in Brazil, and my VHS has a bad quality of image, impairing the magnificent cinematography, especially in the nocturnal shots. The cool David Carradine is in the best moment of his career and is amazing in the role of Abel Rosenberg. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Ovo da Serpente" ("The Serpent's Egg")

The title, The Serpent's Egg, had me wondering for a moment until I realized that it did not refer to the the Doctor and his bizarre experiments nor to Abel and his misery, but to the encapsulated Germany of the 1920s and the environment that led to Hitler's ascent in the 1930s. That is, Germany being the 'egg', Hitler and the Nazis as the 'Serpent', and the environment as the embryo of the egg.

In many ways, this is a cynical film, in that it attempts to show that degradation, fear and loss of life and livelihood is sometimes stronger than humanity and even love. Isn't this true about Germany in the 1920s, and other nations at other times as well? We only have to look at ourselves after the attacks of 9/11 to see a time when fear overcame reason. Fear allowed us to meekly accept the chipping away of our own civil rights and privacy, and also government sponsored torture.

It also gives us a glimpse at one of Hitler's truisms, which is that if he could have a person at age 7, then that person would be a Nazi for life. The experimenting Doctor re-states this in his observations that the sons and daughters of the defeated German populace will be the ones who create the new German society, of which he already is a part with his inhumane human experiments.

Of course, all this is done with hindsight, so how can it be wrong? It can't, but then it's still a good review of a period in Germany that many Americans know nothing about, and should learn if they want the answers to the question of how Naziism came to be. It wasn't just some sort of aberration never seen in history before nor repeated.

A film even most Bergman enthusiasts dislike. However, as weak as it is, I have to admit I found a lot to like about it. First, the bad: David Carradine is pretty awful. He's had an uneven career, giving several very good performances and many bad ones. In the interviews included on the MGM DVD, it seems clear that he was out of his element working with Bergman (the featurette, incidentally, is a must-see; it's hilariously awkward, especially with Carradine's positive take on the film and his own work in it and how it contradicts what Liv Ullmann has to say). Secondly, this was the biggest budget Bergman ever worked with (Dino de Laurentiis produced it when Bergman was hiding from Swedish authorities in Munich), and it feels like a lot of his attention to the emotions of the film, and possibly also David Carradine, was diverted to the handling of the massive amounts of extras and the massive sets of 1920s Germany. Third, the script takes too long to develop. The first half of the film can be excruciatingly slow, and most of the good material comes in near the end. I fear that, for most, it'll be a matter of too little, too late. The good: well, to counteract Carradine's crusty performance, we have the fantastic Liv Ullmann. True, she's a little hard to understand through her accent (I should have probably also noted in the "bad" section the sound, which I think was just badly done; I watched the film with subtitles, but then, hey, it's a Bergman film, so no big deal, right?), but she's as expressive as always. She brings out a lot of emotion, and does it subtly. The setting, Depression-era Germany, is vividly recreated. The Bergman film The Serpent's Egg reminds me most of is Hour of the Wolf, in that it is a horror film. The setting is truly horrifying. The film builds to a surreal, dreamlike climax with Carradine winding his way through a labyrinth. These scenes are impressively done, as are several others. I love the one-shot scene where Carradine wanders into a crowded dance club looking for booze. There really is a lot to like, even though, overall, it's pretty hard to enjoy. Honestly, I think it's well worth seeing.

The film is interesting, of course -it tells about the rise of Nazi power. But this is the less "bergmanian" film of Ingmar Bergman. It's not an intimate portrait of people -as the Swedish director always does. Here we have a big budget movie, with many actors... Although the presence of Liv Ullmann, Bergman loses his targets. On one side he wants to analyze a period, on the other one he has to follow more mainstream rules -because he works for a big budget production. As a result he "fails" (it's a big word) in both things -although the film is not a failure.

We feel Ingmar Bergman is not really at ease. This is not his natural dimension -he's a super director because he has an extraordinary ability of understanding neurosis and anxieties, his favorite context are the relationships among a few people. In "The Serpent's Egg" these trademark are really minor.