Johan Borg is a painter who has retreated with his wife, Alma, to a remote island, where they live quietly while she tends the house and he works. Their solitude is interrupted by the island's aristocratic residents, who admire his art and invite the couple into their social circle. Johan is troubled by nightmares and visions that he records in a notebook, and the people he encounters among the local gentry begin to resemble the figures from those disturbing images. As his inner turmoil deepens, his relationship with his pregnant wife comes under strain.
Ingmar Bergman directed and wrote the film, the fifteenth of the twenty-four features he made, following Persona and preceding Shame. Max von Sydow plays Johan opposite Liv Ullmann as Alma, with Gertrud Fridh, Georg Rydeberg, Erland Josephson and Naima Wifstrand in supporting roles. Lars-Owe Carlberg produced the Swedish production for SF Studios and Cinematograph AB.
The film runs eighty-eight minutes and blends drama with horror. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.5 from around 25,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.4 from roughly 575 votes. A critics' score of 8.1 from twenty-six reviews places it somewhat above the audience averages.
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