Doktor Glas

This curious film is a clinical examination of a sexually repressed doctor in turn-of-the-century Sweden, and it is as cold and detached as its hero. Dr. Glas (Per Oscarsson) is an old man whose blurry, unhappy existence is plagued by sharply etched memories of the time in his past when he helped an attractive young woman kill her obnoxious husband. The flashbacks are interspersed with his sexual fantasy about that woman. Director Mai Zetterling's surgical style is visually effective, but too antiseptic to evoke much feeling.