Review by planktonrules

I've seen a lot of Ingmar Bergman films and sometimes I don't want to see one of his films about death or mental illness. Well, starting in the 1960s to the 1980s, these were the main themes of his movies, but in some of his earlier films, these are not so pervasive--such as the movies The Devil's Eye (a comedy) and The Magician ("Ansiktet"). Because of this, they may be more approachable to the average viewer who would balk at the much more serious tone of such classics as Through a Glass Darkly (deep depression), Persona (mental illness), Autumn Sonata (repressed anger and abandonment), The Seventh Seal (death and the plague) or Fanny and Alexander (child abuse and emotional neglect).

The story is about a traveling group of hoaxters who put on a show combining magic and "animal magnetism" (i.e., an early name given to hypnosis). When they arrive at a Swedish town, they are forced to come to an audience with the local official and his cronies who want to prove that the act is a fraud. Bergman really doesn't try to resolve this issue, but instead shows how the town officials are really rather petty and mean people. How this traveling group deftly survives this encounter is the main focus of the movie. I especially liked the portion of the movie about the autopsy. It sounds gross, but I thought it was actually kind of funny. One of the officials is a cold and rather nasty doctor who longs for a chance to do an autopsy on the hypnotist. He gets far more than he bargains for--that's all I really want to say--otherwise it might ruin the suspense.

So, overall I liked the movie. It was not great but well acted and not the least bit depressing.