Audições III - The Serpent's egg, by Ingmar Bergman, comments by André Bandeira

What makes one prophetic, it is the reality itself. A handfull of moves are enough to make a prophecy, not because anybody around is holding some special powers, but because the best of the self-fulfilling prophecies, that is a Reality which takes over and prophetizes. This movie, starring David Carradine, tells the story of a daring Doctor who has a private dungeon and who makes terrible experiments on trumps and drunkards he recruits as guinea-pigs, in exchange for shelter and food. It takes place in Berlin, during the thirties and it's all about the prescience of Dr. Mengele and the nazi concentration camps. Two policemen, rather conservative and nostalgic of the Kaiser, decide, after some corpses had been found, that they won't be able to stop the flux of times, squirted by a crazy Weimar republic of demagogues. But one of them, the Commander, states very clearly «they won't go where they bound to, as long as I'm in charge». In order to avoid arrest, the doctor ends up committing suicide, while performing an experience on himself. And that's it: wolves never sneak in with the pack. Or, at least, the wolf doesn't use the same tactics to get to the flock. Where he should say hate, he says «humanism». Where he should say fanaticism, he says «cultural conservative». Where he should say genocide, he says «emancipation of Europe». Where he should say passion for chaos, he says «learning with the perpetrators of chaos, the cultural marxists». Where he should say «xenophobia», he says «pro-sionistic and anti-Islam». Where he should say «fascination for Lucipher as a personification of Odin and Thor» he says «protestantism should revert to catholicism». Where he should say «game-crazy and sadistic», he says management Science and gun sports. Where he should say narcissism, he says «nationalism». And where he says «it was cruel, but it had to be done», he whistles as a snake, diverting the attention to a defenseless quarter, while shooting twice on defenseless adolescentes who swam in frozen waters, dressed in bathing-suits, shoeless and terrified.
He is not norwegian. Norway was founded by a Saint, a former Viking who went to battle, knowing he was going to be crushed. Olav, the Fat one, thought that Jesus was much better than Odin and Thor and he felt guilty when he saw handicaped children being abandoned in the bushes, to be eaten by the wolves. He became Saint Olav, and he still leads all of us to the battles where the enemy hides in the fog. He died fighting with his wife and his lover, who was already pregnat and whom he didn't drop, by his side. All three fought as Vikings, children of Balder, not of Loke. When he died, and his followers had been completely crushed, the people and the nobles began converting spontaneously to the creed of Christ. That was his first miracle. The second was the norwegian people.