Dove (1968) Reviews

To catalog the visual and verbal gags in The Dove would be to ruin this delightful short-subject spoof for the uninitiated viewer. Suffice to say that this "winner of the Golden Escargot Award" (and Oscar nominee) is a dead-on satire of Ingmar Bergman movies in general and Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal in particular. An aging professor named Viktor Sundqvist muses on his past while making a crucial stop at a roadside outhouse (the first of several gags involving waste products). He remembers that particular summer in his youth when he and his beloved Inga were forced into a confrontation -- and a badminton game -- with Mr. Death. The film's dialogue is spoken in hilarious faux Swedish, with English-language subtitles "translating" the Scandinavian double-talk. (One character offers another a cigar, asking "Phalliken sym-bol?") Madeline Kahn makes a brief appearance as a woman in love with a cow. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi