In The Magician (or The Face, to translate its Swedish title directly) by film director Ingmar Bergman is an hour film of sorcery, magic vs scientific reasoning. Although struggling to remain coherent throughout the ordeal, the Magician produced in 1958 is a bizarre mixture of philosophy, folly and horror. The film, which demonstrates the riuvalry between art and science can be quite gloomy and depressing at times.

A moving theatre, 'Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater' is set to arrive in a small Swedish town, after strange supernatural reports regarding the performance abroad, causes locals some alarm. As  result, the police chief and medical examiner request that their troupe provide them a sample of their act, before allowing them public audiences. The scientific-minded disbelievers try to expose them as charlatans, but Vogler and his crew put scientific rationalism to the test.

When the magician is challenged to perform miracles, he scares the bejesus out of a policeman using a dead mans corps and hypnotises a local man’s wife into telling the entire room what husband is really like! Magical tricks and 19th century surroundings around which the movie is set, make it appealing but the film can be quite tedious at times.