The Magician(Ansiktet)

Chicago Reader by

Set in the 19th century, it's one of Bergman's most tightly structured and frightening films.

The New York Times by Bosley Crowther

This picture is full of extraordinary thrills that flow and collide on several levels of emotion and intellect. And it swarms with sufficient melodrama of the blood-chilling, flesh-creeping sort to tingle the hide of the least brainy addict of out-right monster films.

Slant Magazine by Joseph Jon Lanthier

This piquant control over cinematic grammar doesn’t quite rescue the film from a laughably zombie-tinged climax and an anomalous deus ex machina denouement, but it makes The Magician one of Bergman’s more accessible failures, and collapses any suspicious connection between him and the fretful Vogler.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

Perhaps Bergman's most typical variation on one of his major themes: the clash between raffish theatrical artists and sober rulers. [10 Dec 2005, p.C4]

The New Yorker by Pauline Kael

This Ingmar Bergman film isn't a masterwork, or even a very good movie, but it is clearly a film made by a master.

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

It’s haunting and beautiful at times, surprisingly playful at others, and like all great movies about magic, it has more than a few tricks up its sleeve.