"Who says she's not real?" This was Bill Nestrick's response to a student's suggestion that the woman of Arne Mattsson's The Doll was merely an illusion to her reclusive lover. Lundgren, a lonely department-store security guard, steals a mannequin and brings her to his attic apartment. In a startling moment of magical realism and cinematic brilliance, the doll becomes animated for both Lundgren and the audience. The doll/woman becomes the reflection before which this alienated man becomes someone; there is nothing he would not do to make her happy. The enchantment is broken when disbelieving neighbors intervene. Their curiosity about the sounds emanating from the supposedly solitary man's apartment trigger the dark ending to this haunting film.-AB, MH, NS