Persona (1966)

AKA Persona

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

Prelude

Persona begins with images of camera equipment and projectors lighting up and projecting dozens of brief cinematic glimpses, including a crucifixion, an erect penis, children in Halloween costumes, and a lamb. The last, and longest, glimpse features an emaciated boy who wakes up in a hospital next to several sleeping women, walking up to a blurry image of a woman's face and touching it.

Act I

A young nurse, Alma (portrayed by Bibi Andersson), is summoned by the head doctor and charged with the care of stage actress Elisabet Vogler (portrayed by Liv Ullman), who has, despite the lack of any diagnosed impairment, become mute. The hospital administrator (portrayed by Margaretha Krook) offers her own seaside cottage as a place for Alma to nurse Elisabet back to health. Though Elisabet is nearly catatonic when the film begins, she does react with extreme panic upon seeing Thích Quảng Đức's suicide on television, and laughs mockingly at Alma's radio soap opera. As the two women leave the hospital together, Sister Alma reads aloud a letter Elisabet's husband has sent her, which includes a photograph of her thin son.

Together in the administrator's cottage, Elisabet begins to relax, though she remains completely silent and non-responsive. Alma speaks constantly to break the silence, at first about books she is reading and trivial matters, then increasingly about her own anxieties and relationship with her fiancé, Karl-Henrik, who scolds her for lacking ambition -- "though not with my career, I suppose in some greater way." Alma constantly compares herself to Elisabet and begins to grow attached to her. As the act closes, Alma confesses to cheating on her fiancé in a menage a quatre with underage boys. Later she has sex with her fiance and says she got pregnant and that they had a child aborted. She is not sure how to process the abortion mentally. Elisabet is heard to say "You ought to go to bed, or you'll fall asleep at the table", but Alma either ignores her or dismisses it as a dream. Alma later asks Elisabet if she had spoken and she denies it.

Act II

Alma drives into town, taking Elisabet's letters for the postbox, but parks by the roadside to read what she wrote. She discovers that Elisabet has been analyzing her and laughing behind her back in letters to her husband. Alma returns distraught, breaks a drinking bottle on the footpath, and leaves the shards there to cut Elisabet. When Elisabet's feet start to bleed, her gaze meets Alma's knowingly, and the film itself breaks apart: the screen flashes white, scratch marks appear up and down the image, the sound rises and screeches, and the film appears to unwind as brief flashes of the prelude reappear for fractions of a second each.

When the film resumes, it is following Elisabet through the house with a thick blur on the lens. The image clears up with a sharp snap when she walks outside to meet Alma, who is weepy and bitter. At lunch, she tells Elisabet she has been hurt her by talking about her behind her back, and begs her to speak. When Elisabet does not react, the nurse flies into a rage and tells Elisabet "You are inaccessible. They said you were mentally healthy, but your sickness is the worst: you act healthily. You act it so well everyone believes it, everyone except me, because I know how rotten you are inside." Alma lifts a pot of boiling water intending to pour it on Elisabet. She only stops after hearing Elisabet say "No, don't." Alma explains that Elisabet wouldn't have spoken had she not feared death. Elisabet flees, and Alma chases her begging for forgiveness.

Act III

That night, Alma watches Elisabet sleep, analyzing her face and the scars she covers with makeup. She hears a man yelling outside, and finds Elisabet's husband, Mr. Vogler, in the garden. Mr. Vogler mistakes Alma for his wife, and despite her repeatedly interjecting with "I'm not your wife", delivers a monologue about his love for her and the son they have together (repeating words he wrote to Elisabet in the opening act -- "We must see each other as two anxious children"). Elisabet stands quietly beside the two, holding Alma's hand, and Alma admits her love for Mr. Vogler and accepts her role as the mother of Elisabet's child. The two make love with Elisabet sitting quietly to the side in a look of panic, and afterward, Alma cries. The image of Elisabet becomes blurry.

The climax of the film comes the next morning: Alma catches Elisabet in the kitchen with a pained expression on her face, holding a picture of a small boy. Alma then narrates Elisabet's life story back to her, while the camera focuses tightly on Elisabet's anguished face: at a party one night, a man tells her "Elisabet, you have it virtually all in your armory as woman and artist. But you lack motherliness." She laughs, because it sounds silly, but the idea sticks in her mind, and she lets her husband impregnate her. As the pregnancy progresses, she grows increasing worried about her stretching and swelling body, her responsibility to her child, the pain of birth, and the idea of abandoning her career. Everyone Elisabet knows constantly says "Isn't she beautiful? She has never been so beautiful", but Elisabet makes repeated attempts to abort the fetus. After the child is born, she is repulsed by it, and prays for the death of her son. The child grows up tormented and desperate for affection. The camera turns to show Alma's face, and she repeats the same monologue again. At its conclusion, one half of the face of Alma and the moiety of Elisabet's visage are shown in split screen such that they appear to have become one face. Alma panics and cries "I'm not like you. I don't feel like you. I'm not Elisabet Vogler: you are Elisabet Vogler. I'm just here to help you!" Alma leaves, and later returns, to find that Elisabet has become completely catatonic. Alma falls into a strange mood and gashes her arm, forcing Elisabet's lips to the wound and subsequently beating her. Alma packs her things and leaves the cottage alone, as the camera turns away from the women to show the crew and director filming the scene.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060827/

Autumn Sonata (1978)

AKA Höstsonaten

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

 

The plot focuses on a prominent concert pianist, Charlotte Andergast (Ingrid Bergman), who has been neglectful and dismissive of her children, whom she has not seen in over seven years. Charlotte decides to make a visit to her eldest daughter, Eva (Liv Ullmann) at her remote house, where she lives with her husband, Viktor (Halvar Björk). Upon arrival, Charlotte discovers that her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), who is mentally and physically disabled (and was placed in an institution by Charlotte) is living with and being taken care of by Eva. Wounded by the neglect and selfishness of her mother, Eva begins to spill all of the things she has ever wanted to say to Charlotte, and as the evening progresses, the tension culminates to a wave of harsh words and exposure of true feelings that change their mother-daughter relationship forever.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077711/

Cries and Whispers (1972)

AKA Viskningar och rop

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

Cries and Whispers takes place in a lavish mansion in the 1800s, filled with red carpets and white statuary. It depicts the final days of Agnes (Harriet Andersson), who is near-death with cancer. Her sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) have returned to the family home to be with her. They remain distant and awkward, and struggle to comfort their sister, while dealing with shock and the fear of mortality her death is bringing to them. The deeply religious maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), whose own daughter died young, is able to comfort her. At length, Agnes dies, and a priest (Anders Ek) arrives at her death bed she returns to the living for a short moment. In a dream-like sequence she asks her family for love and care. For a moment Karin, Maria and the dead Agnes are getting closer to each other, only to be even more distant shortly afterwards. Only Anna is able to embrace and mourn the dead. The film is characterized by flashbacks that return to the life of the protagonists and their memories, tracing each woman's personality to the childhood they spent together. Maria remembers her failed marriage; Agnes remembers her unrequited devotion to their distant mother; Karin struggles with self-harm.

The last flashback, from the deceased Agnes' point of view, is narrated with her diary, and shows her sisters descending upon the house clad in white, like angels. The last words are Agnes whispering "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

AKA Såsom i en spegel

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

The story takes place during a twenty-four hour period while four family members vacation on a remote island, shortly after one of them, Karin (Harriet Andersson), who suffers from schizophrenia, was released from an asylum. Karin's husband Martin (Max von Sydow) tells her and Minus's father, David, that Karin's disease is almost incurable. Meanwhile, Minus tells Karin that he wishes he could have a real conversation with his father, and cries because he feels deprived of his father's affection. David (Gunnar Björnstrand) is a second-rate novelist who has just returned from a long trip abroad. He announces he will leave again in a month, though he promised he would stay. The others are upset, and David gives them bad, last-minute presents. He leaves them and sobs alone for a moment. When he returns, the others cheerfully announce that they too have a "surprise" for David; they perform a play for him that Minus has written. David takes offense (although approving on the outside) at the play, which can be interpreted as an attack on his character.

That night, after rejecting Martin’s erotic overtures, Karin wakes up and follows the sound of a foghorn to the attic. She faints after an episode in which she hears voices behind the peeling wallpaper. David, meanwhile, has stayed up all night working on his manuscript. Karin enters his room and tells him she can't sleep, and David tucks her in. Minus asks David to come with him out of the house, and David leaves. Karin looks through David's desk and finds his diary, learning that her disease is incurable and that her father has a callous hunger to record the details of her life.

The following morning, David and Martin, while fishing, confront each other over Karin. Martin accuses David of sacrificing his daughter for his art, and of being a self-absorbed, callous, cowardly phony. David is evasive, but admits that much of what Martin says is true. David says that he recently tried to kill himself by driving over a cliff, but was saved by a faulty transmission. He says that after that, he discovered that he loves Karin, Minus and Martin, and this gives him hope.

Meanwhile, Karin tells Minus about her episodes, and that she is waiting for God to appear behind the wallpaper in the attic. Karin has repeatedly teased Minus sexually, in a subtle way, and Minus is somewhat sexually frustrated. When Karin sees that a storm is coming, she runs into a wrecked ship and huddles in fear. Minus goes to her and she grabs him. There are strong hints that they have sex, but it is unclear whether they do. Given the hints in the movie, it is possible that Minus is homosexual.

Minus tells the other men about the incident in the ship and Martin calls for an ambulance. Karin asks to speak with her father alone. She confesses her misconduct toward Martin and Minus, saying that a voice told her to act that way and also to search David's desk. She tells David she would like to remain at the hospital, because she cannot go back and forth between two realities—she must choose one. While they are packing to go to the hospital, she runs to the attic, where Martin and David observe her actions. She says that God is about to walk out of the closet door, and asks her husband to allow her to enjoy the moment. The ambulance, a helicopter, flies by the window, making a lot of noise and shaking the door open. Karin moves toward the door eagerly, but then she runs from it, terrified, and goes into a frenzy of panic. Karin vanishes, and, reappearing in a frenzy, is sedated. When she stands, she tells them of God: a stone-faced spider who tried to penetrate her. She looked into God's eyes, and they were "cool and calm," and when God failed to penetrate her he retreated onto the wall. "I have seen God," she announces.

Karin and Martin leave in the helicopter. Minus tells his father that he is afraid, because when Karin had grabbed him in the ship, he began leaving ordinary reality. He asks his father if he can survive that way. David tells him he can if he has "something to hold on to." He tells Minus of his own hope: love. David and his son discuss the concept of love as it relates to God, and the factor of human father-child relationships in the perception of God, in the stretching final chapter of the film. Minus seems relieved, and is tearfully happy that he finally had a real conversation with his father: "Father spoke to me."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055499/

The Seventh Seal (1957)

AKA Det sjunde inseglet

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writers:
Ingmar Bergman

Antonius Block (Max von Sydow), a knight, returns disillusioned, with his squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand), from a Crusade and finds that his home country of Sweden is being ravaged by the plague. To his dismay, Death (Bengt Ekerot) has come for him, as well. He challenges Death to a chess match. Death agrees to the terms: as long as Block resists, he lives. If he wins, he shall go free.
The iconic scene of Death and Antonius Block in a chess game

Master and squire ride across a mossy heath beyond which the sea lies shimmering in the white glitter of the sun. Jöns seeks directions from a man who appears to be sleeping, but is actually dead. An actor, Jof, is shown sleeping in a wagon with his wife, Mia (who is also an actress), their son, Mikael and their manager, Skat. He wakes, ventures outside alone, and sees a vision of the Virgin Mary amongst the wind in the trees; however, when he tells his wife of this encounter, she appears not to believe him.

The knight and squire enter a grey stone church in a strange white mist where a fresco of the Dance of Death is being painted. Jöns discusses the plague with the painter, then draws a small figure to represent himself. "This is squire Jöns. He grins at Death, mocks the Lord, laughs at himself and leers at the girls. His world is a Jöns-world, believable only to himself, ridiculous to all including himself, meaningless to Heaven and of no interest to Hell." The knight Block approaches a priest in the confessional booth: "My life has been a futile pursuit, a wandering, a great deal of talk without meaning. I feel no bitterness or self-reproach because the lives of most people are very much like this. But I will use my reprieve for one meaningful deed." He goes on to confess his doubts about the existence of God, and, by consequence, his fear that life is ultimately pointless. The knight tells the priest that he is playing chess with Death and reveals his strategy, only to find that the priest is Death, hidden in the shadows. Upon exiting the church, Block sees a girl in chains who has been condemned for being a witch in league with the devil and is to be taken away and burnt at the stake. He asks her if she is really familiar with the Devil, but she does not answer.

Shortly thereafter, Jöns walks into an abandoned farm looking for water, where he saves a servant girl (Gunnel Lindblom) from being raped by a robber. He recognises the robber as Raval, a theologian (Dr Mirabilis, Coelestis et Diabilis) who ten years ago had convinced the knight, his master, to leave the wife he loved and join "a better-class crusade to the Holy Land." Jöns threatens to brand Raval on the face if he catches him again. Shaken, the girl agrees to come along with Jöns as his house keeper. Block and Jöns ride into town, where Jof and Mia are performing in front of a crowd, although their performance is interrupted by the arrival of a group of flagellants. In the confusion, Skat comes across a woman from the village, and is persuaded to run off with her.

Later, at a public house, Jof comes across Raval and Plog, a blacksmith, who is grieving because his wife had recently left him for an actor (later revealed to have been Skat). Knowing that Jof is an actor, Raval accuses him of being the one, and attempts to humiliate the innocent performer by forcing him to dance on the tables like a bear. However, Jöns appears and stays true to his word, dealing a rough justice by cutting Raval with a knife from forehead to cheek. Jöns then consoles Plog, and convinces the smith to come along with him.

The knight and Death continue their game, but Block sees the evening light move across a wagon to the actress Mia and her little child. He walks over. She tells him that the actor Skat has run off and left them and that they plan to visit the saint's feast at Elsinore. He warns them against this as "the plague has spread in that direction...people are dying by the tens of thousands." When Mia's husband Jof returns, the knight finds solace in a quiet, pleasant picnic of milk and wild strawberries with the family. Antonius Block explains how much he loved his own wife before he left her for the Crusades. He also shares with Mia his ongoing burden, the burden of faith, which he describes as loving someone in the dark who never comes. However, it is the simple and harmonious moments like this in which he states he is able to find comfort and which he wishes to remember: "I'll carry this memory between my hands as if it were bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk...And it will be an adequate sign-it will be enough for me." He invites them to his castle, where they will be safe from the plague.

Block, Mia, Jof, Mikael, Jöns and Plog head through the forest, and along the way they come across Skat and Lisa (Plog's wife). After being threatened by an enraged Plog, Lisa quickly leaves Skat and returns to him. Skat then stabs himself to avoid receiving the brunt of Plog's wrath. Shaken by the actor's sudden suicide, the group moves on; once they have gone, Skat sits up, unharmed, having faked the stabbing with a trick knife.

Death finds the missing actor Skat hiding up a tree and begins sawing it down. Skat protests but Death insists his time is up. "No, I have my performance", says Skat. "Then it's been cancelled because of death", is the reply. "Aren't there any special rules for actors?" "No, not in this case."
The final scene depicting "dance of death".

They next come across the young girl from the church, who had been declared a witch. The Knight demands of the monk: "What have you done with the child?" Jöns' conscience is sympathetic to the girl and he contemplates killing her executioners, but decides against it as she is almost dead anyway. Block asks her again to summon Satan for him; he wants to ask the Devil about God. The girl, in a state that Block describes as her "terror", claims already to have done so, but Block (and the audience) cannot see him. He gives her an herb which he says will take away her pain, and then leaves, his dilemma unanswered.

The robber Raval that Jöns branded later appears dying of the plague, pleading for water. The mute servant girl attempts to bring him some, but is stopped by Jöns, who exclaims, "It's meaningless. Can't you hear that I'm consoling you?" The robber then dies. Jof, the actor tells his wife Mia that he can see the Knight playing chess with Death and decides to immediately escape with his family.

Antonius Block pretends to be clumsy and knocks the chess pieces over, distracting Death long enough for the family of actors he has befriended to slip away. Once the pieces have been replaced on the board, Death then places the knight in checkmate, winning the game, and announces that when they meet again Block's time—and the time of all those still travelling with him—will be up. Before departing, Death asks if Block has accomplished his one "meaningful deed" yet; Block replies that he has. The knight is reunited with his wife at his castle, she having waited there alone for him. The party shares one "last supper" before Death comes for them through the twilight of the "large, murky room where the burning torches throw uneasy shadows over the ceiling and walls." At the final moment, Block pleads to God: "Have mercy on us, because we are small and frightened and ignorant." Jöns's girl, on her knees, smiles and announces, "It is finished."

Meanwhile, the little family of actors and jugglers have endured a strange light and roar in the forest which the father, Jof, interprets to be "the Angel of Death and he's very big." They now awaken listening to the rain tapping on the wagon canvas and crawl out, noticing "the dark retreating sky where summer lightning glitters like silver needles" over the ridges, forests, wide plains and sea. Jof, with his second sight, sees a vision of the knight and his followers being led away over the hills in a solemn dance of death. "They dance away from the dawn and it's a solemn dance towards the dark lands, while the rain washes...and cleans the salt of their tears from their cheeks." His wife, Mia, turns to him and says "You with your visions and dreams."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/

Wild Strawberries (1957)

AKA Smultronstället

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

 

Eberhard Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) is an elderly physician. His medical and scientific specialty was bacteriology according to the script. Before specializing he served as general practitioner in rural Sweden. He drives 400 miles, with his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) from Stockholm to Lund to receive the honorary degree Doctor Jubilaris 50 years after graduating from Lund University. During the trip, he is forced by nightmares, daydreams, his old age, and his impending death to reevaluate his life. He meets a variety of people on the road, from Sara, a female hitchhiker traveling with her fiancé and escort, to a quarreling married couple who remind Isak of his own life and unhappy marriage. He reminisces about his childhood in the seaside, his sweetheart Sara (played by Bibi Andersson, who also plays the other Sara). He is confronted by his loneliness and aloofness, recognizing these traits both in his ancient mother and in his middle age physician son, and gradually advances towards acceptance of himself, his past, his present, and his soon-to-occur death.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050986/

Winter Light (1962)

AKA Nattvardsgästerna

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

The film opens with the final moments of Tomas's noon service. In attendance are only a handful of people, including fisherman Jonas Persson and his wife Karin (von Sydow and Gunnel Lindblom), and Tomas's ex-mistress, the atheistic Märta (Ingrid Thulin). After the service, Tomas, though coming down with a cold, prepares for his 3 o'clock service in another town.

Before he leaves, however, the Perssons arrive to speak to him. Jonas has become morose after hearing that China is developing an atomic bomb. Tomas speaks to the man briefly, but asks Jonas to return after taking his wife home. No sooner have the Perssons left than Märta enters, attempts to comfort the miserable Tomas, and asks if he's read the letter she wrote to him (he hasn't). Tomas tells her of his failure to help Jonas, and wonders if he will have anything to say, since he is without hope as well. Märta states her love for Tomas, but also her belief that he doesn't love her. She leaves, and Tomas reads her letter.

In an unbroken shot lasting almost six minutes, Bergman has Märta face the camera and speak the contents of the letter. In it, she coldly attacks Tomas for his neglect of her, relating a story of how a rash that disfigured her body repulsed him, and neither his faith nor his prayers did anything to help her. Tomas finishes the letter, and falls asleep. Awakened by the return of Jonas, Tomas clumsily tries to provide counsel, before finally admitting that he has no faith as well. He tells the depressed man that his (Tomas's) faith was an egotistical one — God loved humanity, but Tomas most of all. Serving in Lisbon during the Spanish civil war, Tomas could not reconcile his loving God with the atrocities being committed, so he ignored them. Tomas finally tells Jonas that things make more sense if we deny the existence of God, because then man's cruelty needs no explanation. Jonas leaves, and Tomas faces the crucifix and declares himself finally free.

Märta, who has been lurking in the chapel, is overjoyed to hear this, and embraces Tomas (who again does not respond to her affections). They are interrupted by the widow Magdalena, who tells them that Jonas has just committed suicide with a rifle. Tomas drives, alone, to the scene. Shot in an awkward, distant style (as contrasted with the claustrophobic close-ups of the rest of the film), Tomas stoically helps the police cover Jonas's body with a tarp, then stands guard while waiting for the "van" to collect the body, which arrives shortly. Märta arrives on foot, and she and Tomas drive off to her home, where she invites him in to take some medicine for his cold.

Waiting in the classroom attached to her house (Märta is a substitute teacher), Tomas finally lashes out at her, telling her first that he rejected her because he was tired of the gossip about them. When that fails to deter her affections, Tomas then tells her that he was tired of her constant talking, and that Märta could never measure up to his late wife, the only woman he has ever loved. Though shocked by the attack, Märta agrees to drive with him to the Persson house. Informed of Jonas's suicide, Karin collapses onto the stairs and wonders how she and her children will go on. Tomas makes a perfunctory offer of help, and leaves.

Arriving for the 3 o'clock service at the second church, Tomas and Märta find the building empty except for Algot, the hunchbacked sexton, and Fredrik, the organist (who arrives late and slightly inebriated). Fredrik tells Märta that she should leave the small town and Tomas and live her life, rather than stay and have her dreams crushed like the rest of them. Meanwhile in the vestry, Algot questions Tomas about the Passion. Algot wonders why so much emphasis was placed on the physical suffering of Jesus, which was brief, versus the many betrayals he faced from his disciples (who denied him, did not understand his message, and did not follow his commands) and finally from God, who did not answer him on the cross. Wasn't God's silence worse, he asks. Tomas, who has been listening silently, answers "yes". Fredrik and Algot wonder if they should have a service since no one showed up, but Tomas replies that someone has shown up: Märta. Tomas speaks the first lines of the service as the film ends.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057358/

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

AKA Vargtimmen

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

The film is framed through the account of Alma (Liv Ullman), who addresses the audience directly while sitting at a picnic table. She tells of her husband's disappearance, which is explored in a flashback constructed of his diaries and her words.

Johan Borg (von Sydow) is a painter who is regularly approached by odd and suspicious people. He confides to his young, pregnant wife Alma (Ullman) that he believes them to be demons, and that his insomnia is growing worse. On the nights when Johan can't sleep, Alma stays awake by his side through the nights, especially during the vargtimmen ("The Hour of the Wolf"), during which, Johan says, most births and deaths occur. Johan begins to give names to the figures who approach him, including the Bird-Man, the Insects, the Meat-Eaters, the Schoolmaster (with pointers in his trousers), and The Lady With a Hat. Throughout the film, Alma expresses her belief that two people who love each other, and spend their lives with each other, will eventually become alike. (See Persona.)

It is implied to the audience that these figures represent Johan's shames, traumas, and vices. Johan's wife talks about wanting to grow old with him, and that night, a 216-year-old woman approaches him, taunting him about age. In one scene, he recounts to his wife meeting a small boy tanning himself on a rock. As the nude boy approached Johan, he "realized" it was a demon representing homosexuality (and sexual experimentation in his youth), and violently smashed the child's face against a stone before tossing him into the ocean to drown. Alma reacts to the story with shock, and sinks into despair. Johan tries to persuade her to leave so he might kill himself, but the couple are approached by a baron, von Merkens (Josephson), who lives in a nearby castle. The painter and his wife visit them and their surreal household: a castle, where Johan's ex-girlfriend Veronica lies waiting on a table. Swarms of men dress Johan in make-up and women's clothing in preparation for a sexual encounter with her, while Veronica hands Alma her husband's diary and tells her "I have bought myself a sizeable stake in your husband." Veronica taunts her by showing her bruises on her pelvis, "perpetual sources of reinvogarated enthusiasm".

Johan panics, and flees into underbrush. In the last act of the film, Alma searches the forest for her husband, only to find his mangled body. In the final moments, she addresses the camera, "Is it true that a woman who lives a long time with a man eventually winds up being like that man? I mean, she loves him, and tries to think like him, and see like him? They say it can change a person. I mean to say, if I had loved him much less, and not bothered so of everything about him, could I have protected him better?", believing that her love of Johan spread his demons to her, so that she could not protect him.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063759/

The Silence (1963)

AKA Tystnaden

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

 

After a nightly train journey through desolate countryside, two emotionally estranged sisters stop at a once-grandiose hotel in an unidentified Central European country on the brink of war or insurrection, in the middle of a heatwave. The older, more cultured sister, Ester (Ingrid Thulin), who is a literary translator, is taken seriously ill, which seems to be terminal. Her fear of death, as well as long-standing rivalry and need for control, cloud her relationship with her younger sister Anna (Gunnel Lindblom). The sisters are depicted as a spirit/flesh dichotomy, with Ester representing the heart and mind, and Anna representing the body and soul.

Upon arriving to the hotel, Anna's son, Johan (Jörgen Lindström), a boy of 8 or so, wanders around the seemingly empty hallways, encountering a friendly old man and a group of Spanish midgets who are part of a travelling circus. Meanwhile, Ester wastes away in her room, attempting to work on her translations, and Anna ventures into the city, eventually having a one-night-stand with a stranger, which infuriates Ester.

By the end of the film, Anna and Johan leave the hotel, and Johan reads a note given to him by Ester while boarding the train. The note reads: "To Johan- words in a foreign language". Anna, seemingly unaffected by it, opens the window and cools herself with the outside rain. It is implied that Ester dies at the hotel, alone.

The theme of 'silence' is repeated throughout the film: God has been silent to Anna over her life, and is now silent in Ester as she dies; in addition, none of the characters speak the language of the country, causing disorientation and confusion; and the two sisters constantly misinterpret the others' words, making communication difficult or impossible.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057611/