Disharmony reigns in all Bergman’s films, but in The Serpent’s Egg the pessimism is almost cosmic, no longer restricted to one couple, one family. ‘Man is an abyss,’ wrote Georg Büchner, ‘and I turn giddy when I look down into it.’ Bergman sets this quotation at the head of his screenplay for The Serpent’s Egg (Ormens ägg)