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Rating: In 1923, in a Germany defeated after the First World War, which ended only five years earlier, one American dollar was equivalent to as much as three billion German marks.
Able Rosenberg, a former unemployed trapeze artist (David Carradine), after spending another day wandering aimlessly in search of work, comes home to find his brother lying on the bed, having committed suicide. Shocked and disoriented, Able decides to reach out to Manuela, his brother’s ex-girlfriend (Liv Ullmann), who is also his great friend. Following a disastrous and increasingly oppressive economic situation, the two, after several attempts, find work at the Santa Monica mental health center. Despite the numerous working hours, the center doesn’t seem too bad, offering a free meal and an apartment with free gas and heating... but all that glitters is not gold.
The Germany described by Bergman is a nation on its knees; Berlin, today one of the mainstays of the European economy, appears as an empty, dark, and gloomy ghost city; a country where no dream is achievable and people, too tired to rebel and rise up, desperately seek work with their gazes fixed into the void. The same protagonist, Able, an unemployed alcoholic played by a splendid Carradine, with fear and insecurity, tries to make it through the day and as he himself repeatedly states throughout the film, "I need to get drunk to fall asleep". His companion Manuela, aware that she can't change the situation, ambiguously tries to make the hysterical Able part of her private life.
A beautiful, infernal, and splendidly realistic film. The director depicts a chilling scenario, a cold and perfect stage that forms the foundation of the socio-political movement that would change the face of 20th-century Europe: Nazism. Bergman describes how people, desperate men and frustrated women, brought to their knees by the heavy economic imbalance, could trust a mad and unbalanced person like Hitler, during that period and in the following years, the only parachute on a plummeting plane. However, let it be clear that while "the egg," as mentioned in the film’s title, symbolizes the birth of the Nazi movement, the film is not a narrative about the horrors of the Fuhrer; instead, it symbolizes the lowest point that human malice can reach. Throughout the film, not a single drop of blood is shown; it is a psychological violence the author speaks of, an experiment on our skin. One of the most beautiful, and at the same time the most terrifying and revealing scenes is the final prologue by the psychiatric doctor Hans Vargerus, a monster with an impenetrable gaze: "we exterminate what is inferior and enhance what is useful".
While The Serpent's Egg is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful films shot by the Swedish director, described by himself as: "the strongest film I've ever made, almost a horror film", it falls short in just one aspect: after watching the film, you feel as if your legs are gone.
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