a review of 假面

1st Annual Criterion Challenge Week 25: Directed by Ingmar Bergman I wish I'd gotten to see this one much earlier, because I can easily see the influence that this movie has had on so many other things that I'd seen previously. Many that are quite recent, and still partaking of what Bergman had created here. I also wasn't necessarily prepared for how Bergman goes full-meta straight out of the gate, with that surreal frame story about the process of watching a film and the viewer's imagination. At first it barely seems to connect to the rest, but as the movie goes on you can start to see how it relates to the women's relationship to each other, where their reality is being constructed both by each other as well as the filmmaker and the viewer at home.