Synopsis
He Came... He Saw... She Conquered!
Don Juan is sent from Hell to Earth with a mission: to seduce a virgin in order to spoil her pure wedding. The mission becomes frantic when Don Juan falls in love for the first time in centuries.
Don Juan is sent from Hell to Earth with a mission: to seduce a virgin in order to spoil her pure wedding. The mission becomes frantic when Don Juan falls in love for the first time in centuries.
Djævelens øje, Şeytanın Gözleri, Die Jungfrauenbrücke, Şeytanın Gözü, L'occhio del diavolo, L'Œil du diable, Das Teufelsauge, El ojo del diablo, עין השטן, O Olho do Diabo, Дьявольское око, Paholaisen silmä, 魔鬼的眼睛, Diabelskie opowieści, Το μάτι του διαβόλου, 악마의 눈, Ďáblovo oko, Око диявола
Action! - of God and Man: Bergman and the Hopelessness Kind
Bergman returns with another “comedy” that managed to amuse me more than make me laugh. The premise is pretty interesting; you got Satan don’t want this woman to stay virgin and serve as an example for his peers, so he sends none other than Don Juan to seduce her. Also, Don Juan is having a punishment himself, as every time he gets to hook up with some chick and take her to bed, some demon will come up out of nowhere and troll him by making the chick disappear. Would he break away from this curse? Will Bibi Andersson lose her virginity?
Jarrel is having the time of his…
Ingmar Bergman has clearly matured here while maintaining his signature aesthetic; the cinematography and visual style remain as impressive as his previous masterpieces.
It is well-known that The Devil’s Eye was a "one for them" project, made to satisfy the studio so they would finance his more serious drama, The Virgin Spring. While the concept and story had potential, the forced dash of comedy unfortunately didn’t land for me. It’s evident that Bergman didn’t invest his usual depth into the writing or the underlying message.
The dialogue is surprisingly explicit, but the central premise feels a bit hollow: the idea that a woman’s virtue is tied strictly to her virginity and that this purity is what causes a literal stye…
”I apologize, but we must briefly discuss hell”
When the devil becomes aware of a virtuous virgin who’s about to marry the love of her life, he worries it might start a trend. So he dispatches Don Juan to seduce her and put a stop to all this moral madness.
A theatrical farce from Ingmar Bergman that as you might expect is more of a humorous rumination of heaven and hell than a joke filled comedy.
There’s still some good moments with lots of human commentary, and I’m always wiling to spend time with Bibi Andersson and Nils Poppe.
On a Side Note:
Is just me, or would “Bergman’s Demons of Hell” make a great name for a band? And of course the first album would have to be titled, ’Journal of the Devil in my Cupboard’
”Nothing has a greater attraction than a potentially evil moment.”
I don’t know about you, but when I see a film blurb that starts with, “The devil has a sty,” I am ALL IN. An interesting enough farce that starts out looking like a kooky play, and ends up as a somewhat inscrutable mixture of humorous and psychologically fraught scenes.
A naive vicar unwittingly invites Don Juan and his servant Pablo-fresh up from hell and looking to party-over his house, and Bibi Andersson and Gertrud Fridh play the daughter and wife that become the object of their obsessions. While the wife’s scenes with Pablo, and the vicar’s scene trying to stuff a demon in his pantry are entertaining, it’s a bit strange that the film introduces Andersson’s character, a naively optimistic, virginal bride-to-be,…
¥𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝐹𝑖𝑙𝑚𝑠 𝐼’𝑣𝑒 𝑊𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑑/𝑅𝑒𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑆𝑜 𝐹𝑎𝑟¥
𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐆𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦???
𝐈 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, “𝚻𝛌𝛆 𝐃𝛆𝛎𝒊𝛊’𝒔 𝚺𝛙𝛆”, 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 & 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐫 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐚 𝟒/𝟓 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬.
𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞: 𝐀-
“𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙’𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦.”
“𝐼 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ, 𝑀𝑎𝑑𝑎𝑚, 𝑎𝑠 𝐼 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒.”
“𝑌𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑢𝑧𝑧 𝑜𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐼’𝑚 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑟 𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟.”
“𝑌𝑒𝑠, 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑎 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚 𝑖𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛’𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒.”
𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰’𝐬 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐦: 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑽𝒊𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒏 𝑺𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 (𝟏𝟗𝟔𝟎, 𝐈𝐧𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐫 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐧)
𝜶𝜼 𝜤𝜼𝒈𝒎𝜶𝜸 𝜝𝜺𝜸𝒈𝒎𝜶𝜼 𝝆𝒊𝝇𝝉𝝁𝜸𝜺 | 𝜶 𝑺𝝕𝜺𝜹𝒊𝒔𝝀 𝝆𝒊𝝇𝝉𝝁𝜸𝜺 | 𝜶 𝝆𝒊𝝇𝝉𝝁𝜸𝜺 𝜸𝜺𝜾𝜺𝜶𝒔𝜺𝜹 𝒊𝜼 𝝉𝝀𝜺 𝟏𝟗𝟔𝟎𝒔
In my journey with Bergman over the years, I have come to learn that basically all of his films work on some level -- how well they work is more dependent on what the viewer's mood is like. All moods differ in much the same way that all Bergman films differ. Today the stars aligned, in what is widely regarded as lesser Bergman, worked quite well for me. Found it funny and unique and highly original. I loved all the performances and the ending is a grand slam.
The Devil’s Eye is a comedic fantasy film by Ingmar Bergman that is an engrossing satire of middle class ethics and morals. It was the last feature film to be shot by Bergman’s frequent cinematographer in the 1940s and 1950s Gunnar Fischer. The devil 😈 (Stig Jarrel), while suffering from an inflamed eye, tells Don Juan (Jarl Kulle) that it can be cured only of a young virgin’s chastity is taken before she is married. The devil allow the famous lover ascend from Hell to seduce a pure, innocent 😇 pastor’s daughter, Britt-Marie (Bibi Andersson). The dialogue in the film is full of irony that is very much an homage to one of Bergman’s favorite playwrights, Moliere. The harpsichord music composed by Dominic Scarlatti and played throughout the film highlights the happiness that is scattered throughout the movie. The plot is a little convoluted, but it is an enjoyable enough lesser known Bergman film.
Made in between his pair of Oscar winning foreign language films, Ingmar Bergman surprises with a witty and fantastical comedy of love and the afterlife. Think of it as the twisted Swedish version of Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait.
The Devil's Eye is highly enjoyable and with a concept that is too unique to resist (Miniature synopsis: The Devil enlists the talents of the original Don Juan sent from hell to deflower a virgin to help him recover from a infectious sty in the eye). Sort of the same appeal of when I read the synopsis to The Seventh Seal when I was first introduced to Bergman and was subsequently drawn into his philosophical yet macabre world. While Bergman's Hell emits…