I suppose I had better begin at the beginning. The overture consists of a series of static shots of the audience members staring blankly at the stage. If the conductor and orchestra had been included, it would have been something, but these static shots do nothing for me. The audience on screen seems rather bored, which really doesn't make a good impression on the audience watching them at home. Then there's the little girl, who shows up often in this opening montage and later in between scenes and during the intermission. I don't like her, simply because she has nothing to do with anything and I got sick of staring at her very quickly.
The three ladies, upon arriving, established what was to become extremely annoying to me-- all the actors staring at the camera with vacant grins as they sang. They're supposed to be arguing, and they spend the entire time looking cheerful! All the actors do this, at least from time to time, so that every time you begin to accept the story, they take you out of it by staring at you from the screen. It's kind of unnerving.
At this time, too, the poor cinematography kicked in. Almost everything is in uncomfortably tight closeups, often rendering it impossible to tell just what's going on--as when Tamino meets Papageno, who is doing something with a stick that apparently involves a bird. We don't know what it is he's doing, though, since the cinematographer didn't see fit to zoom out and show us. When the subject changes, it often does so through a sloppy pan or a jerky zoom rather than a clean cut. It looks as if it was shot by a high school student with a video camera, sweeping back and forth in an amateur attempt to follow the action. All too often, the camera focuses on something irrelevant, like when the film cut to a shot of the little girl from the overture in the middle of an aria. What?! Why would I want to look at her when there's action happening on stage?!
There's also the matter of Bergman being unable to decide whether this is a stage production or an actual movie. The intrusive shots of the audience keep dragging us back to it supposedly being a stage production, but then the characters whisper back and forth and walk through three-dimensional sets that would have been impossible to see from the audience. Yes, I know, it's stylized, but it's also very distracting to keep wondering where the heck it's taking place. I could go along with the use of stagey sets and costumes, since those by themselves in a movie that was otherwise its own production would've been a charming reference to the story's origins, but by including the audience-within-the-film, Bergman repeatedly pulls the viewers out of the moment. "See? These people are watching it too! They're awfully bored, but never mind that."
The costumes were not entirely true to Mozart's original intentions, as has been claimed by an earlier reviewer. Those who bother to look up pictures of the original Papageno (who was also the original librettist) will discover that he is covered in feathers from head to toe. Bergman's Papageno, charming as he is, lacks feathers. That being said, he was still my favorite part of the movie. I also liked the three boys in their flying machine. Tamino was dashing enough, and Sarastro was well-cast. Monostatos, on the other hand, couldn't decide whether or not he was a Moor, and settled on being a dirty-faced white man in a jester suit. Apart from his appearance, though, he was satisfying enough. I really liked the dance he and his slaves did when Papageno played his bells.
The inclusion of the actors as they ran about backstage was...odd, to say the least. Like the inclusion of the audience, it was distracting, and worse, confusing as it is unclear whether the characters on stage are supposed to be able to see the characters in the wings. Also, are we to believe that the people playing the animals and the dragon kept their costumes on the entire time they were waiting backstage? There would be no reason for them to do so, and it would be very uncomfortable.
It was also strange that sometimes Papageno had to strike the bells with a mallet to make them sound, and sometimes he did not. I don't mind the bells being magical enough to play themselves, but it would have been nice to have some consistency.
I'll forgive the abridgment of the opera, as one can hardly expect a filmmaker to shoot a three-hour opera word for word. I did like the handling of the first two trials, and the act of moving Papageno's aria up to the second trial proved to be a surprisingly good decision, as it allowed him to be singing his heart out as Tamino kept trying to shut him up, adding the element of comedy to the scene. I also liked the handling of Papageno's suicide attempt and duet with Papagena, with the symbolic winter and spring settings, even if it did include the three boys randomly stripping.
The use of pans instead of cutting was sometimes a source of confusion, such as during Papageno's aria in the second trial. When Papagena is shown trying to come to him and being stopped by the priest, the same shot pans over to Papageno, who smiles at the camera. By doing it this way, it puts Papageno and Papagena in the same space, and makes it appear almost as if Papageno has seen her and is smiling knowingly at the audience.
Overall, I'd say it's a fairly enjoyable movie, but it suffers from severe flaws in the cinematography and editing, as well as some sub-par acting.
