The Magician

Watch "The Magician" (Ansiktet, 1958) online on iFILM — Ingmar Bergman's darkly playful drama about a travelling illusionist who arrives in a Swedish town and immediately faces interrogation by a medical officer determined to expose him as a fraud. Max von Sydow plays Albert Emanuel Vogler, mute and masked, leading a troupe that includes Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson.

Bergman made this right after "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries", and the film sits in curious company between both: philosophically heavy but laced with a sardonic wit those earlier works kept at arm's length. The skeptic who dissects Vogler's tricks learns more about his own credulity than about any deception. Shot by Gunnar Fischer, released in Sweden in 1958, it won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival that year. Stream "The Magician" (1958) on iFILM.