Ingmar Bergman's first English-language film is a grim political piece. Once again he collaborates with famed cinematographer Sven Nykvist, whose camerawork is the only redeeming feature here. Set in poverty-stricken Berlin of the Twenties, its stars, Liv Ullmann and David Carradine, play brother-and-sister-in-law struggling to survive. At one time, before her husband commited suicide, the three of them had been a successful trapeze act. Now Ullmann is working as a prostitute by day and in a dive bar at night. Things between them begin to go wrong, and it's at this time that Carradine meets a doctor who operates on people in a private clinic. His patients seem to be driven insane or to suicide. Both of them enter the clinic... The title apparently means the membrane of a snake's egg through which looming fascism could be seen. One of Bergman's least watchable films, this was both a box-office and a critical flop.


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