In 1976, Sweden’s iconic
filmmaking legend, Ingmar Bergman, fled his native land. He was being hounded by government officials
over the issue of tax evasion, which was later withdrawn as being without merit
… but the damage to his reputation and the humiliation that followed had been
done.
He had been working on a
script in various forms since 1966, which was based on his pre-war experiences
with a pro-Nazi family in Germany … he lived with them as an exchanged
student. Now, back in Germany, he decided
to finish the script … it would become his first film produced outside of
Sweden in his filmmaking career.
Arrow Video, with
domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group,
has tabbed Dec. 4 as the Blu-ray street date for a special edition of that film
… The
Serpent’s Egg.
The film, which stars
David Carradine and Liv Ullmann, takes place in the early 1920s in
Germany. Carradine plays Abel
Rosenberg, an American living in post World War I Germany, as a trapeze artist
who has been let-go from the circus.
His brother Max was his partner and has recently committed suicide …his
reasons will become clear as the film progresses.
Max’s ex-wife is a
cabaret performer by the name of Manuela (Ullmann), who is not particularly
shocked when Abel tells her of Max’s death (how odd). Also in the mix is a sinister fellow by the
name of Hans Vergerus (Heinz Bennent), who is something of a childhood friend
of Abel’s … perhaps pre-war.
There is also Police
Inspector Bauer (played by Gert Fröbe) who takes more than an interest in Abel,
especially when several individuals loosely connected to Abel, Max and Manuela
turn up dead.
Bergman’s The
Serpent’s Egg takes us down a Kafkaesque rabbit hole that foreshadows
the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The
film also, in a not so subtle way, is Bergman’s way of hitting back at the
“power of the state” and the control it has over the helpless individual, which
is something of a metaphor for his own experiences with his native Sweden.
Bonus features include
commentary from David Carradine, the archival featurette titled “Away From Home”
and the newly prepared video session titled “Bergman’s Egg” featuring critic
and author Barry Forshaw (“Death in a Cold Climate: Scandinavian Crime Fiction,”
“Nordic Noir” “Sex and Film,” etc.).
