Aus Dem Leben Der Marionetten on AllMovie

Produced and directed for German television, Ingmar Bergman's From the Life of the Marionettes starts out in color and switches almost immediately to black-and-white. This cinematic self-indulgence is ideally suited to the subject matter: the horrible consequences of a rapidly disintegrating marriage. The husband, Peter Egerman (Robert Atzorn) is unable to articulate his frustration through normal channels. Warped by his repression, Egerman ends up raping and murdering a prostitute. This outrage occurs at the very beginning of the film; the rest of the footage is devoted to a semi-documentary study of the failed marriage, the police investigation, and the husband's twisted psyche. Once again, Bergman's vision is superbly realized by the camerawork of Sven Nykvist.