About

Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician is a game of masks and mirrors, combining sumptuous Gothic imagery with satire, magic and dark humour.

The mysterious Dr Vogler (Max von Sydow) is invited to present his ‘Magnetic Health Theatre’ to the Swedish gentry, with royal medical advisor Vergérus (Gunnar Björnstrand) determined to prove the magician and his troupe as fraudsters. What ensues is a social satire on the ruling classes and the ‘lowly’ forms of entertainment they deride yet are magnetically drawn to. Their cultured façade is easily dissolved to reveal their exploitative, drunken and lecherous nature. However, when the supposedly deceptive illusionists are unmasked, they appear to possess more integrity than their duplicitous hosts.

Comedy arises from over-the-top melodramatic moments and parody of gothic, carnivalesque and horror tropes, including misty forests, spiritualism and the host’s home shot as if it is a haunted house. Bergman’s muse, Max von Sydow, known to modern audiences as the enigmatic three-eyed raven in Game of Thrones, is no less mesmerising in the title role. He does not utter a word until more than an hour into The Magician which only adds to his enigma as he communicates so much with just his eyes. Both characters and audience constantly question the authenticity of Vogler’s powers, and the film continuously plays with dichotomies of belief/scepticism, rationality/illusion and deception/magic.

Ages 15+ | Contains mild level violence, sexual references and adult themes