Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

The Serpent's Egg (1977)

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Whether stimulated by his brush with the Swedish tax-man or his brief self-imposed exile in West Germany, Bergman's paranoia runs dementedly and tediously out of control in this Grand Guignol recreation of 1923 Berlin as studio set for close encounters of the most portentous kind. Carradine is improbably cast in the central role of a Jewish trapeze artist called Abel Rosenberg, wandering innocently through a night-town world of bottles, brothels, and (inevitably) cabarets, and trying to ignore the violence, depravity and anti-semitism screeching at him from every street corner. The torments he endures, with a sadly miscast Ullmann (who's further afflicted with throwaway lines like 'I can't stand the guilt'), have indeed been devised by a foresighted mad scientist straight out of Dr Strangelove. This last-reel revelation comes too late to restore audience disbelief to its proper state of suspension.

Author: JD

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

The divine comedy

The divine comedy

Film Forum honors Carole Lombard, cinema's funniest lady.

From here to maternity

Catherine Deneuve, belle maman, reigns in A Christmas Tale.

Van Dammage

With the metamovie JCVD, the Muscles from Brussels hopes to flex his acting chops.

Kind of blue

Elizabeth Banks comes undone in Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

Sim city

Charlie Kaufman dreams up a portrait of the artist as a control freak.

Oliver's army

W. returns Hollywood's provocateur to the big political canvas.

Bridesmaid revisited

Anne Hathaway crashes more than a wedding in Rachel Getting Married.