The Silence | Ingmar Bergman

Johan, The Silence | Ingemar Bergman

"The director also reveals that ..." I received an anonymous letter, containing filthy toilet paper; so one could say the treatment accorded to this film, which by today's standards was pretty innocuous, was rather fierce. There were even people who rang up and threatened both my own life and the life of my wife...So the sexual trauma in Sweden must have been acute. One is always glad when a film is a success. But then, when I discovered why it was a success, and how many of the people who were going to see it were saying furiously they'd never again go and see a Bergman film, I was terrified.'"

The Bergman retrospective at the beloved Charles Theater here in Baltimore showed the final film in a trilogy: Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence. This was the eighth week of Monday night Bergman films and I'm not handling it well.

The Silence was so deathly tedious, I almost tore my hair out after the first hour. I leaned over to A., my Bergman film companion and said, "I am dying!" In this film Bergman shows the audience his idea of how the world looks without god in it. The loneliness portrayed in the film is unbearable. The close ups and the unmoving camera each adds to this feeling of stillness and alienation.

Throw two sisters, one a scholar, dying of alcoholic deterioration, the other a hedonistic, whoring, thoughtless person (she will leave her sister alone to die), together with a lonely, unloved young son of one of the sisters, an approaching war outside the hotel windows, where the three have stopped, and things get pretty awful. Then all you have to do is add a troupe of midgets, which Bergman does, and my sense of dread arises from the depths of my psyche screaming.

Bergman thinks that people were critical of this film because of the taboos it broke around sexuality. I don't think so. It was the assault by silence, emptiness, inability to commuicate, and the excessive use of symbols that drove this viewer crazy. I can tell I am going to be stewing over this film for a couple of days, at least. Talk about your nihilism.

Next week...Persona.

Bergman is Dead.

OF "Winter Light", its Director, Ingemar Bergman says that one of the meanings of the film is "that at all costs one must do what it is one's duty to do, even if it can seem meaningless." This dreary film, referred to as a masterpiece, is elusive. Its simple storyline is sodden and pondering. Bergman seems to confirm his film's meaning about persisting, by finishing this film in the face of so much meaninglessness.

So goes the seventh of twelve films in the Monday night Bergman film retrospective at the Charles Theater! This one was not over soon enough. So far it is the only unsatisfying film in the series for me.

Bergman has told us at other times that where there's love then there's God. I think of the Seventh Seal, where the man and woman proceed through the frightening woods in their fragile wagon, trusting themselves to each other's love. The winds howl, creatures lurk, they are afraid and nearly blown away, but they come out on the other side of the forest at peace and more surely in love.

So in "Winter's Night" we have Marta's declared love, which Tomas, the Pastor, cruelly rejects. It is seemingly a love that is just not enough. Then there is Jonas (gorgeous Max von Sydow), severely depressed, who agrees to seek Thomas' counsel, only to be assured by Thomas that god is, er, sort of dead. Fortified with these words, Jonas leaves the pastor and kills himself at a river's edge. After helping load the dead body into a vehicle for removal, Tomas returns to his church and begins his regular service. Agony.

The film does not hint of light at any time. All is dark, gray. cold. One must imagine what winter light could be.

The filmmaker, Sergio Trasatti, points out how "Tomas can't accept Marta's love and he cannot save Jonas' life because he can't give love to them; and this lack of love is the real silence of God".

Amen.

(click on pictures to enlarge them)

Wild Strawberries

AJ and I have been attending the Monday night Bergman retrospective at the Charles. I want to jump up and down and praise him. So far we've seen Secrets of Women, Seventh Seal and tonight, Wild Strawberries.

It is a struggle to get over the archaic quality of the film. I know this is the wrong issue to gnaw on, just look at the frame and lighting on the son and father above. I know Bergman was doing things in film that no one else had imagined. I really, really liked Seventh Seal. Who else thought of playing chess with Death? Brilliant. Aren't we all going to live forever if we just make the right moves? Aren't we always going to be here? Alive? The images of the Seventh Seal are forever in my mind. Thank you. Thank you.

But, it is hard to hang in there with these early movies. The pace, the somberness lull me towards sleep. I fought sleep tonight during Wild Strawberries. AJ lost the fight and snored softly to my left. Again, I liked the film, this simple tale of a man coming to terms with his life and finding infinite support in the happiness of his childhood memories. The three young travelers were a terrific contrast. And, there was the wise and angry daughter-in-law who helped him to begin the move toward a deeper understanding of the harm his pompous indifference has caused.

The man who plays the part of the professor is so vulnerable and fragile by virtue of his age, this viewer could feel only sympathy for him. Here he was on this epiphanic car trip to receive his scholarly award. Each time the old man dozes off, a nightmare awaits him. Each nightmare shocks him into a deeper encounter with consequences of his actions. We should all be so lucky, earlier!