Jovan Nikolic
Anna and Ester are sisters, Johan is Anna's son and they are traveling through foreign country whose language they can't understand. As Ester felt terrible discomfort in train, they decided to take a rest and take a room in a hotel. During their stay at the hotel, Anna feels threatened and dominated by Ester's presence.While most of the cinema enthusiasts were focused on the battle between sisters, Johan caught my attention. As Anna and Ester were battling, he was wondrously exploring the halls of hotel and met dwarfs, hotel janitor, even saw his mother embracing and kissing with stranger. Scenes with him in halls are true gem of this film. Those cuts were astonishing. Camera angles, characters, atmosphere at that moment briefly reminded me of Polanski's "The Tenant" (1976), particularly the moment when Trelkovsky meets alienated neighbors. It's beautiful how Bergman contrasted his childish innocence among the clash of two sisters which relation was intoxicated as a result of their completely different personalities. He was playing with dwarfs, discovering halls of hotel like some kind of parallel universe where everything is possible.We never got true reason of sisters confrontation but from what can be perceived they are true antipodes. Anna is narcissistic, shallow, troubled mostly with her needs and desires. Ester is an intellectual, translator, meaning and reason are her raison d'etre. In their dialogue near the very end of film, it's obvious that Anna is jealous of Ester because she is educated better, her actions are driven by reason yet to be revealed that she earlier in adulthood admired her. At some point, I started thinking that all of Anna's behavior, like cheating on her husband, being very open in sexual relations and taking pride in all that in conversations with her sister was nothing more than her attempt of liberating herself from sister's influence. Anna's lover, some random citizen of that foreign country, doesn't understand her talking and she's happy because of that. Sexual objectification of a man, back in 1963 when this film was recorded, sends strong message of modernism and liberating women from dominant patriarchal paradigm.Like in Smultronstället (1957) and Viskningar och rop (1972) Bergman again successfully used ticking clock suggesting passage of time and, also, time as inevitable mediator of death. Ticking is more lively at the very end of the film suggesting finiteness of Ester's existence. Bergman's usage of ticking clock is one of the most beautifully used symbols in his films. It's only his talent that makes their appearance at perfect timing and the fact that he succeeded to overcome banality due to their overuse.
gizmomogwai
Ingmar Bergman made a trilogy, according to critics, later Bergman himself, and still later the Criterion Collection. The Silence (1963) is supposedly the last chapter of this trilogy which also includes Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Winter Light (1963). They're all good films, but I question The Silence being linked with the others. It's possible to read The Silence as not having any particular relation to God, and there seems to be no direct reference to the Spider-God mentioned in the other two films and depicted on the Criterion DVD cover.Trilogy or no trilogy, The Silence is another solid film from Bergman. At first I found it kind of dull, as the two sisters Anna and Ester live with Anna's son Johan, with Ester being seriously ill. Not much seems to be happening to start with, there isn't much talking, and it seems a little strange when Johan goes into a room with several little people. At times it caught my attention with some open sexuality- the nudity (not quite as spectacular in black and white), the female masturbation, the sex in public. At any rate, the film eventually began to work for me, particularly with its conflict between the two sisters and the hints of lesbian incest. Anna is a sexual being, and her relationship with a strange man seems to be tearing Ester apart. With time, this film builds up undeniable atmosphere that ultimately wins me over. More people should see this film.
tieman64
The first film in director Ingmar Bergman's "faith trilogy" - to be completed several years later with "Winter Light" (1962) and "Silence" (1963) - "Through A Glass Darkly" (1961) stars Harriet Andersson as Karin, a young woman who suffers from a mental illness. This illness resembles schizophrenia, but Bergman cruelly calls it "the disease of faith", a symptom of Karin's theism.Karin habitually sees visions of God, but her visions are warped to the point of parody. Her God takes the form of a salacious spider, and later a helicopter which ferries her sputtering body to a mental hospital. Supporting the increasingly deranged Karin are three men: Karin's brother, husband and father. These men embody three very different approaches to "spirituality" or "love", each of which is contrasted with Karin's more Christian outlook. The father, for example, is a cynic, depressive and writer, and is increasingly detached from a family he loves only insofar as they provide material for his increasingly morbid novels. The husband, in contrast, is a man of science, but his rationality proves unable to cure his wife. Meanwhile, Karin's brother is a naive, budding play-write, who develops an incestuous, sexual attraction toward her. As with Bergman's other "faith" films, Karin's beliefs are mocked for being hollow and borne of delusions, but shown to be far less horrific than those of the apathetic, post faith characters who surround her.The film ends with a macabre parody of romantic, spiritual and familial love. Here, Karin's embrace by God is ushered in by incestuous sex with her brother. An angelic helicopter then lifts her, not up into heaven, but toward a psychiatric ward. Afterwards, Karin's father tells his son that the family's love for one another is proof enough of the existence of God. His words are a self defence mechanism, designed to assuage the pain of watching his family disintegrate. The son, so starved of affection and attention, then accepts the father's drivel. By the film's end, Bergman has shown not only how a love of God is often the displacement of the love we should show for one another, but how even the staunchest unbelievers summon "Gods" to bolster their fragility.Like "Through A Glass Darkly, "Winter Light", the second film in Bergman's trilogy, takes place in a cold, remote part of Sweden. Bergman's tone is austere and chilling throughout, all skies, oceans, rivers, buildings and vistas seemingly bleached and robbed of all depth. Attuned to this suffocating "nothingness" is Tomas Ericsson, a village pastor (named after Bergman's own father, a priest called Erik) who has lost his faith but continues to tend to his dwindling congregation. If Bergman's "faith trilogy" traces a movement away from shaky belief to profound existential abandonment, then "Winter Light" represents the mid-point of this journey: shaky disbelief, God's light wintry, wispy and uncertain.And so Bergman paints Tomas as a man of, not only uncertainty, but contradictions. Tomas uses his position of "divine authority" to absolve himself of blame when one member of his congregation commits suicide, whilst using his certainty that God doesn't exist, and therefore also absolute morality, as an excuse for his treatment of several woman. But the problem, the film goes on to show, isn't that God does or does not exist, but that he has always been summoned and shunted aside whenever it best suits man."Winter Light" ended with two atheists in a church, waiting for God to speak. The silence that greets them becomes the basis of Bergman's "The Silence", arguably the greatest film in his trilogy (and the precursor to his traumatising "Cries and Whispers"). Making heavy use of sound effects and little use of dialogue, the film centres on Anna, Ester and Johan, a young boy. Whether these characters are related (Lovers? Family? Friends?) is never clarified.It isn't long before Bergman is alluding to off-screen wars (expressionistic shots of tanks and war machines) and the on-screen mortality of his characters (Ester coughs blood; she's dying from Tuberculosis), all forms of human suffering which for centuries have cast doubt on the existence of God. The rest of the film then largely takes place in a hotel, which Johan explores whilst Ester remains ill and bed bound. During his explorations he will stumble across various mundane yet disturbing sights and sounds. Think the fan which is placed at Ester's bedside, ostensibly for her comfort, but with each blade spin being a reminder of helplessness. Meanwhile, the click of Johan's toy pistol echoes shadowy military vehicles, whilst typewriters and clocks sing songs of death, each tick-tock bring one closer to oblivion. There's a certain, sickening "finality" to "The Silence's" "noise".Most horrific, though, is the disguised contempt these characters have for one another, despite their seemingly unwavering love. Ester despises Anna for her good health, for the carnal pleasures she indulges in, whilst Anna apathetically views Ester as a constant inconvenience. It's a love-hate tug of war which little Johan is being indoctrinated in.And so more horrific than God's silence is our own silence, our inability to both truly connect with another human being, and to know completely what the other is thinking. Despite Ester and Anna's rituals of human connection, they remain forever apart and forever alone. Ester herself represents the "Mind", a figure of intellect and rationality (linked to Bach, is multilingual etc), while Anna represents the "Body", Bergman stressing her bodily routines (bathes, eats, sex, is facile etc). What the film shows is that Pure Reason eventually withers the body, whilst carnality, unennboled by reason, ultimately leads to similar self destruction. Bergman's cure is the film's final word: "spirit". He closes on a powerful shot of Johan, the boy's future, and dilemma, ours.8.5/10 – Worth one viewing. The trilogy's cinematography, by Sven Nykvist, suffocates.
