Pictures Of Wolf

Pictures Of Wolf

In accordance with the ancient Romans, the Hour of the Wolf means the time between night and dawn, just before the light comes, and individuals believed it to be the time when demons had a heightened power and vitality, the hour when many people died and most kids were born, and once nightmares came to one.". Setting the stage for what will follow with this disturbing introduction, Ingmar Bergman's 1968 feature Hour of the Wolf is most likely the closest the director has ever come to shoot a horror film, one that crosses over into the realm of the supernatural. 

With the intriguing framing device of having Alma Borg, the wife of painter Johan Borg, recount to an invisible interviewer, the strange disappearance of her husband and what lead up to it, the film's main narrative unfolds from Johan's viewpoint as Alma reads his diary. Living in seclusion on the shore of a desolate island, Johan and his pregnant wife start to experience overwhelming emotions of dread and apprehension triggered by Johan's repeating nightmares and a fear of the dark. Even his wife begins to see apparitions which might or might not exist. When one of them, an elderly woman, encourages Alma to read her husband's diary that he keeps hidden under the bed, she learns of a previous mistress, Veronica Vogler, who once more enters his life when his socially important ini invite her to visit them. 

This unsettling development together with a series of strange incidents, haunting visions and creative frustrations drive Johan to the brink of craziness, while his wife tries, but is not able to relieve his tormented mind-set. Much closer in tone to her dark psychological dramas of the early sixties, Hour of the Wolf was the first films of a trilogy that starred Max von Sydow as the director's alter ego, the other two films are Shame and The Passion of Anna. Throughout the painter Johan Borg, Bergman is able to face his own emotions of nervousness and isolation as an artist as well as his tenuous relationship with society. At one point, Johan even confesses, I call myself an artist for absence of a better name. Through no fault of mine I have been pointed out as something remarkable, a calf with five legs, a monster.". In the end, Hour of the Wolf is a gothic and disturbing meditation that's frequently impenetrable in its meaning though a large part of the film works exclusively on the power of its imagery - a guy who suddenly rises on the wall and onto the ceiling, an old bone that removes her eyes, places them in water glasses and after that tears from his face, a young, half naked boy who attacks Johan while he's fishing and is beaten to death and thrown into the sea where his corpse hovers like a ghost right under the surface.