"Bergman's not exactly successful examination of the events and warped psychology leading up to a bourgeois businessman's murder of a prostitute. Laden with sexual traumas, fading marriages and nightmare death wishes, it's a trip through Bergman territory that we've all taken before. But Sven Nykvist's camerawork is as usual impeccable, and a certain curiosity value is afforded by the spectacle of Swedish angst filtered, as through a glass darkly, by way of an entirely German cast."

"There are few scenes left from the original script, but, by and large, From the Life of the Marionettes is fresh. The film is based on concrete observations and memories surrounding a theme that had haunted me for a long time: how two human beings who are insolubly and painfully united in love at the same time try to rip themselves free of their shackle."

Philip Strick: "Film Notes"