The subject of this Ingmar Bergman film is repression, but everything is dismayingly on the surface—it’s structured to give each of its main characters a prolonged confessional monologue, delivered straight into the camera, and by the time they’re through there’s no mystery or tension left (1980). Bergman was at loose ends since God’s walking out on him in the early 60s; Freud’s in his later heaven, but Bergman’s obfuscating style doesn’t serve the mysteries of psychoanalysis nearly as well. Marionettes bypasses the grainy realism of Bergman’s 70s films in favor of the stark, stiff formalism of the 60s. It’s a conscious attempt to recapture past glories, but it ends by betraying Bergman’s lack of inspiration—it’s as if he’s imitating Woody Allen imitating Bergman. With Robert Atzorn, Christine Buchegger, and Martin Benrath.