Hour of the Wolf Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Hour of the Wolf Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 25, 2023

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Criterion's Ingmar Bergman's Cinema set.

It understandably may be well nigh impossible to choose an "all time greatest filmmaker" of the 20th century, if for no other reason than that personal tastes differ, but I can't imagine any "devoted cineaste" not having Ingmar Bergman at least near the top of their own aggregation. Criterion has been feting some iconic creative forces with expansive box set compendia of films, including Essential Fellini and The Complete Films of Agnès Varda, but in terms of overall offerings and packaging extras, Ingmar Bergman's Cinema may itself be sitting atop a list of finest Blu-ray collection offerings. Some of the films in this impressive collection have in fact had prior releases by Criterion, as should probably be expected, but there are a fair number making their Blu-ray debuts. As tends to be the case with Criterion releases, technical merits are also generally excellent, and the supplements can be very appealing.

Most film fans would probably never associate the name Ingmar Bergman with the concept of a traditional "horror film", though some wags may argue that everything from a knight playing a game of chess with Death to a bickering long married couple may offer their own kind of frights. Hour of the Wolf could indeed be perceived as a "horror film" of sorts, though with someone like Bergman writing and in the director's chair, the film is of course anything but "traditional". This is another really interesting film offering Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow in what is by and large a "two hander", though various other characters do waft in and out of a story that is rather surreal and either dreamlike or nightmarish, depending on your point of view.

There's a certain Gothic sensibility to another Bergman film starring von Sydow, The Magician, but I'd argue that Hour of the Wolf perhaps is more attuned to the more troublingly dark aspects of that genre, even if its "spiritual wondering" (wandering?) is somewhat similar. Kind of interestingly in that regard, the surname Vogler is utilized in both films, with von Sydow's titular character in Bergman's 1958 opus bearing that name, and with a secondary but important female character in this tale similarly monikered.

Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) is a painter living with his pregnant wife Alma (Liv Ullmann) on an isolated island where Borg has encountered troubling neuroses (or are they?), including visions of demons who are "out to get him". He also seems to have a thing for his former lover, Veronica Vogler (Ingrid Thulin). There's a folkloristic aspect to this film that would have been perfectly at home in Severin's immense All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror set from a while back, and the film weaves a tale of dissociation and an artist's inner turmoil in a really, well, haunting way. Hour of the Wolf was met with considerable critical derision upon its original release, but it's reputation has grown over the years, and I personally consider it to be one of the better films from this era of Bergman's long and legendary career.

Hour of the Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

From the Life of the Marionettes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.38:1. Criterion's kind of overwhelming insert book offers nice summations of each film's transfer attributes, and the relevant data points for this film are as follows:

Picture element: 35 mm duplicate negative
Scanner: Scanity
Transfer resolution: 2K
Sound element: 35 mm optical track
Picture and sound restoration: Swedish Film Institute

Additionally, a brief text card at the beginning of this presentation offers a bit of additional information in that the digital restoration was accomplished in 2016. Kind of ironically this film is paired with From the Life of the Marionettes on Disc 9 of Ingmar Bergman's Cinema, since From the Life of the Marionettes has a somewhat restrained style, while Hour of the Wolf fairly bursts with fascinatingly dense and mutlilayered imagery. Bergman and the legendary Sven Nykvist exploit all sorts of slightly skewed framings, and fact both some nice tracking shots and just Bergman's general mise en scène in this film actually reminded me quite a bit of Fellini at times (look at screenshot 2 for just one example). As Borg's mental state begins to deteriorate, the imagery becomes more and more surreal, but detail levels are beautifully precise looking almost all of the time, buoyed by really expressive contrast and very well modulated gray scale. Blacks are especially well delineated, and for just one example watch toward the end of the film when Borg is wearing a black satin (?) robe and is filmed against a stark black background, with absolutely no crush or other issues intervening. Grain resolves naturally throughout. My score is 4.25.

Hour of the Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hour of the Wolf features LPCM Mono in the original Swedish. Due to the island setting, there's some relatively nonstop background ambient environmental sounds, which become what might be termed more threatening as the story develops. There's just a bit of brashness in the high end that can be heard in such effects as some of Alma's panicked chasing after Borg at the climax, perhaps exacerbated by just a hint of hiss or background noise. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Hour of the Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements associated with this film.

Hour of the Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This review is being written as Halloween is approaching, and as unlikely as it may sound, Hour of the Wolf may be the perfect (non traditional) horror film for the holiday, at least for those attuned to Artier takes on scary material. Technical merits are first rate, though this is one of the films in Ingmar Bergman's Cinema not granted any supplementary material. Recommended.