THE MAGIC FLUTE Movie Review

Ingmar Bergman was commissioned in 1975 to create a special television presentation of Mozart's The Magic Flute, a broadcast which would commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Swedish radio. As a concept it made sense, of course, since there's always been a streak of Mozart's elegant romanticism in Bergman films like Smiles of a Summer Night (The Magic Flute is even referenced directly in The Hour of the Wolf). Still, it seems almost miraculous that Bergman's delicately theatrical staging of the opera works as well as it does on film. Far from attempting to disguise the opera's stagebound qualities, Bergman revels in them; the movie is actually about the experience of seeing a theatrical performance, and of surrendering oneself to it. The young girl's face that we see during the overture (Bergman's daughter) is settled in and anticipating, open to the experience that is about to begin, and we jump right in with her. It's a variation on Olivier's device of taking us to the Globe for a performance of Henry V, the difference being that Bergman keeps us in the theatre as the opera progresses, making the charming artificiality of sets and scenery such as a fire-breathing dragon and a passenger balloon an integral part of the performance. Photographed in color with characteristic ingenuity by Sven Nykvist, The Magic Flute remains the most successful and rapturously rewarding of filmed operas. Bergman's own pleasure in Mozart's artistry seems to have brought out a welcome warmth in the great director; it is—for composer, director, and audience—a marriage made in heaven.

NEXT STOP … Smiles of a Summer Night, Fanny and Alexander, Babette's Feast

1973 (G) 134m/C SW Josef Kostlinger, Irma Urrila, Hakan Hagegard, Elisabeth Erikson; D: Ingmar Bergman. Nominations: Academy Awards ‘75: Best Costume Design. VHL, LV HMV, PAR, MVD