The Serpent's Egg

Does Liv Ullmann ever do less than brilliant, does Ingmar Bergman never surprise?

Depression hit post Great War Germany, the moods, the sets, the atmospheres almost have you reaching for a bottle of whatever takes your troubles away from the very off, but also wondering how David Carradine might improve, or at least maintain the high level the director's portfolio had achieved to date (albeit acknowledging the Elliot Gould effect of The Touch). The answer is he doesn't and, while he does scrape through until the end, you're left reflecting on the fantastic selection of actors from Sweden the maestro deployed to such ground breaking effect through his lifetime behind the lens.

An intriguing story that gathers pace towards the end.

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.

Fear, Loathing, and Despair in Berlin, November 1923

This film universally considered "the master's failure" but I don't agree with the statement. It is very different from the rest of Bergman's films I've seen but that does not make it failure for me. It is only Bergman's second film in English and it boasts an unusual for his films large budget (Dino De Laurentis was a producer) with enormous and elaborate sets. Bergman was able to recreate on the screen Germany (Berlin) of 1920th exactly how it was seen in the films of 1920th German directors - Fritz Lang's films come to mind first. Another film that The Serpent's Egg reminded me of was Bob Fosse's Cabaret - the theme of the Feast during the Time of Plague sounds very prominent in both films, and the cabaret's musical numbers in Bergman's film could've came from Fosse's. I was very impressed by Liv Ullmann's singing and dancing in the beginning of the film - she can do anything.

In spite of the film's obvious differences from Bergman's earlier work, it explores many of his favorite themes. It is in part a political film about the helpless, distressed and terrorized members of society that face the merciless and inevitable force of history and are perished without a trace in the process. Also like the earlier films, The Serpent's Egg explores its characters' self-isolation, inability to communicate, their attempt to cope with the pain of living, their despair, fear, and disintegration.

The Serpent's Egg may not be a perfect film and a lot has been said about the abrupt and heavy handed ending, the dialogs that don't always work, and David Carradine's performance as a main character. Perfect or not, I think it is an interesting, visually always amazing (cinematography by Sven Nykvist is above any praise) and very honest and thorough study of the human condition in the unbearable situation.

In the documentary 'Serpent's Egg: Away From Home' (2004), Ingmar Bergman, Liv Ullmann and David Carradine talk about making the film, how it started and how and why it was so different. Liv said that couple of years ago she and Bergman had seen The Serpent's Egg for the first time, and they both liked it. I am in a good company, then, because I believe that Serpent's Egg is an unforgettable film and everyone who was involved in making it should not be ashamed of it. I am yet to see a Bergman's film that I don't like.

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.

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.