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The third and final chapter in Bergman’s thematically-linked “Faith Trilogy”, The Silence would probably rank among the most tonally complex, bizarre and controversial of the lot. Consequently, unlike Through a Glass Darkly and White Light, its inclusion into the trilogy, too, is exceedingly difficult to comprehend. Suffused with emotional starkness, grotesque symbolism, sexual repression, surrealism and discomfiting sensuality, the movie chronicles the complicated relationship between two sisters – the voluptuous and promiscuous Anna (Gunnel Lindblom), and her intellectual, repressed and ailing elder sister Ester (Ingrid Thulin). The two sisters, along with Anna’s kid son, make a stopover in a foreign country, and put up in palatial but largely empty hotel. While Ester is strongly attracted to Anna, the latter has the years come to be repulsed by her elder sister, and this strange chemistry gives rise to strong undercurrents between the two; meanwhile Anna’s son drifts aimlessly in the vast emptiness of the hotel, largely unaware of the psychological tug-of-war between the two ladies. The acting, as in all Bergman films, is great, with Thulin’s being especially nuanced and memorable. Though bereft of background score, the terrific black-and-white cinematography has played an immensely vital role in delineating the various tapestries of this provocative mood-piece.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
Originally intended as a 5-hour long TV miniseries, Bergman later cut Scenes from a Marriage to a more manageable feature length for theatrical release. The film begins with Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullman), an upwardly mobile couple and seemingly in a wonderful long-standing marriage, getting to know over dinner that the relationship of two of their close friends have grown severely sour and are on the verge of divorce. Eventually Johan informs the strikingly beautiful but emotionally distant Marianne that he is leaving her for another woman. The film goes on to capture their on-and-off sojourn over the next few years. This remains a searing, intimate, layered and emotionally draining portrayal of the breakdown of their complex love-hate relationship, and the heavy toll it ends up taking on the two individuals. The movie, though verbose in nature and despite its discomfiting premise, managed to keep me engaged thanks in huge parts to the great script, tight editing, and of course, outstanding performances by the two leads. Josephson and Ullman are present in nearly every frame of the film, and they managed to captivate me in every single of them. Even Bibi Andersson and Jan Malmjo pitched in with blistering turns in their cameo as the warring couple. This uncompromising and disturbing examination of marital fallout remains one of the best works of the Swedish master, and formed the basis for Husbands and Wives, which in turn was one of Woody Allen’s best works.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Marital Drama
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
The second chapter in Bergman’s much acclaimed “Trilogy of Faith”, Winter Light is a fierce, austere and distressing examination on religion, faith and despair. This would rank as one of the starkest and bleakest films made by the Swedish master – that’s something given that Bergman was never known for making easy, audience-friendly movies anyway. The film has only three characters worth noting – Tomas (Gunnar Bjornstrand), a middle-aged pastor in a small rural church, suffering from a severe bout of spiritual crisis and emotional turbulence, and tormented by his inability to decide on god’s existence; Marta (Ingrid Thulin), a school-teacher and Tomas’ former mistress who’s almost devotional in her blind love for the seemingly cold pastor; and, Jonas (Max Von Sydow), a suicidal fisherman who somehow seems to the pastor as an extrapolation of his subconscious. Completely bereft of music and shot in static black-and-white, Bergman employed lingering moments of silence, long takes, uncomfortable close-ups, and a desolate surrounding to reflect not just “God’s silence” but also the complex and disconsolate state of the pastor’s mind. The fact that the pastor is a stand-in for the director himself, makes this harsh, superbly-enacted drama that much more poignant and powerful.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Religious Drama
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
Through a Glass Darkly was Ingmar Bergman’s first entry to what would come to be known as “Trilogy of Faith” or “Chamber Dramas”. This profoundly complex human drama is a deeply philosophical work filled with themes ranging from religious ambivalence to familial dysfunction to sexual awakening to clinical illness. The film comprises of just four characters – Karin (Harriet Andersson), a disturbed young lady who’s suffering from slow mental disintegration; her father David (Gunnar Bjornstrand), a famous writer who is studying her daughter with cold detachment; Martin (Max Von Sydow), her loving husband and a compassionate doctor; and, Minus, her emotionally fragile brother having difficulty in coming to terms with his adolescence. Shot in gorgeous black-and-white, largely bereft of music, and set in a single location – that of an isolated island, this is a searing yet poetically beautiful examination of human alienation and isolation (both emotional and spiritual), and the inherent godlessness of our universe. The film, in keeping with Bergman’s fascination with the dark recesses of the human mind, is filled with disturbing elements and subtexts (most notably Karin's complicated relation with Minus), all brought forth through immensely layered storytelling. Great turns by the cast, especially Harriet Andersson, make the film all the more absorbing.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Religious Drama/Family Drama
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
Fanny and Alexander was the majestic penultimate film of Swedish maestro Ingmar Bergman. This semi-autobiographical film by Bergman, about the joys and pains of growing up, is filled with deeply-felt melancholia and heart-warming nostalgia. The film’s protagonist is a young boy called Alexander Ekdahl growing up, with his younger sister Fanny, in a large, aristocratic family mansion in turn-of-the-century Sweden. However, upon the death of his theatre-loving father, the lives of the two young souls take a drastic turn for the worse when their mother decides to marry a harsh and cold Bishop, and decides to move in to his austere home. The lack of material comforts, however, turns out to be the least of their problems, as they are thrown into a life that is unloving and unforgiving. The most memorable portion of the film undoubtedly remains the extended opening sequence where the distinguished Ekdahl family is shown having a grand and boisterous Christmas celebration. Filled with a host of neurotic and wonderfully etched characters, the party is a scene of joy and mirth. Gorgeous photography and interior set-pieces play important parts in showing the arc, from resplendence to bleakness to back to one of contentment, that the film traverses. This episodic film boasts of extraordinary performances, not just by the kids, but by its entire ensemble cast, especially their affectionate grandmother (Gunn Wallgren), beautiful mother (Ewa Froling) and brutal step-father (Jan Malmsjoe), among many others.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Psychological Drama/Ensemble Film/Period Film
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
Often considered amongst Swedish master Ingmar Bergman’s greatest films, alongside a plethora of others, not least of all being The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Fanny and Alexander, Persona is a difficult film to categorize, explore or analyze. The film has at its centre a famous actress who has undergone an emotional breakdown and as an aftermath has stopped speaking. Realising that being put up at the hospital will not help, the matron there sends her to an idyllic sea-side retreat house, in accompaniment of a young and jovial nurse who turns out to be emotionally fragile and in dire need of help herself. Played to perfection by Bergman regular Liv Ullman as the stony, imperceptible and immaculately beautiful actress and Bibi Anderson as the gullible and emotionally dependent nurse, the film presents a complex, often surreal, and deeply psychological portrait of these two ladies and the myriad interactions between them over the few days that they get to spend together. Understandably a difficult watch, the film is more a treatise of human psychosis, and is filled to its brim with complex allegories, abstract imagery, psychological references, examination of Catholic guilt as well as the various lies that define a public person’s life, etc., thus in a way forming more of a mirror of Bergman’s thought-processes than one that has anything to do with a conventional structures. The film might feel like an enigma to most and would require multiple viewings, but the conversations felt extremely personal and believable, and the static black-and-white photography had a feel of immediacy to it.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Avante-Garde Film
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
Often recognized, along with The Seventh Seal, as Swedish maestro Ingmar Bergman’s most iconic work, and perhaps among his most accessible films, Wild Strawberries certainly ranks as a landmark cinematic achievement. Compassion, warm-heartedness and a strong sense of humanism runs through this deeply philosophical treatise on the difficult process of ageing and man’s inherent inability to completely move on from his past disillusionments. Isak Borg, an elderly medical professor on his way to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater, is a man ridden with guilt and disappointment – principally for matters relating to the heart and relationships. Thus his road journey along with his daughter-in-law Marianne turns out to be less a physical one and more a surreal, even symbolic, travel through the memories of his childhood, nightmares, fears, trampled dreams, unrequited love, emotional turmoil, regrets, his Freudian obsession with death, and his familial failures, finally achieving a small sense of peace with himself at the end of the road. The film is carried by the towering performance of celebrated Scandinavian director Victor Sjostrom as the egotistic but sympathetic Isak, with a fascinating supporting turn by Ingrid Thulin as the beautiful but emotionally troubled Marianne. The complex, disturbing dream sequences are alone worth their weight in gold.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Surreal Drama/Family Drama/Road Movie
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
In Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s timeless classic Anand, Amitabh Bachchan’s character quoted, “Death, you are a poem.” In Cries and Whispers, Swedish master Ingmar Bergman created a solemn and melancholic yet spellbinding poetry on the otherwise morbid subject of death. The frail Agnes, who is afflicted with cancer, in on deathbed at her palatial manor house, and her continual suffering forms the unlikely bridge between her estranged sisters – the suicidal and tortured Karin, and the shallow and cold Maria. Meanwhile Agnes is taken care of by her motherly maid, Anna, with undying love and devotion. All the three ladies serving the whimpering and dying Agnes, have had unpleasant brushes with death, and lead deeply scarred existences, though carefully masked by misleading, sociable veneers. Intense grief, pain, sexual repression and skeletons in one’s closet form the principal themes of this tragic, albeit lushly beautiful, human drama. Though visually enthralling – expressionistic compositions, colours and imageries play far greater roles than mere words, the film can be emotionally distressing for most viewers, and the slow pacing is as unsparing as it gets. This deeply personal tale benefited from a great cast, with especially stupendous and devastating performances by Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullman and Harriet Andersson.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Family Drama
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
