The Serpent's Egg

Berlin, 1923. Inflation rises daily; bread bought in the morning sells at another price in the evening. Abel is an American circus acrobat and out of work. His brother kills himself. Abel stays with his brother's wife Manuela, who works in a cabaret. The police question him; there have been a series of deaths in the city and all the dead come from the same circle. Abel finds work at a hospital and sees an archive there. The deaths follow a pattern, and that pattern has been recorded. Ingmar Bergman writes and directs. David Carradine plays Abel and Liv Ullmann plays Manuela. The film is among those Bergman made outside Sweden; he had left the country over a tax investigation and this was shot in Germany during that period. It was a large production and proceeded on a different footing from the way he was used to working. Its historical reference is open; the narrative looks in the Germany of the twenties for the preparation of what would come later, and takes its title from that. Its strongest side is the picture of the city; the streets, the cabaret and the hospital corridors carry the constriction of the period. Bergman said in later years that he considered it a failure among his own works. The section of explanation at the end is its most argued over part and was found too direct. Who it is for: anyone curious about the whole of Bergman's work and viewers who like period thrillers. Who it is not for: the register is dark, the narrative loose, and the ending explanatory.