FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Antonius Block Harriett Andersson really shows her range as an actress in this film from Director Ingmar Bergman, playing a young woman recently released from a mental institution, and suffering from schizophrenia. She seems so natural and effortless as she toys with her younger brother (Lars Passgård), poignant as she rues what she's done to her husband (Max von Sydow), and explosive in front of him and her father (Gunnar Björnstrand) as she breaks down. It's a fantastic performance. Those are the only four actors in the film, which is stark and minimalistic, set on an island vacation home and taking place over a single day. It's a quiet, thoughtful movie, where each scene and each shot seem like a work of art. There are frustrations all around: Björnstrand is an author who struggles to the point of despair with writing something that is good artistically, and also with ensuring he spends enough time with his family, unfortunately erring too much on the side of his writing instead. Passgård feels this acutely, yearning for his father's attention, and also having difficulty with his emerging sexual desires. von Sydow has the frustration of losing his partner, as her sanity and her affection have faded, and he knows he is powerless to help against a condition which will never improve. He continues to love her anyway. The main axes of the movie have Andersson (schizophrenic) inflicting pain on von Sydow (her husband); Björnstrand (callous and selfish) inflicting pain on Passgård (his son). It's telling that Andersson has her breaks with reality in a dilapidated old room, and then later in a ship that's wrecked along the shore as water pours in. There is a sexual element here: she denies her husband, and later suggests that this is because she must choose "one side or the other", seeming to have opted for the crazy and unreal side of her psyche, having some sort of sexual encounter in her mind in the room before he wakes up, later seducing her brother, and finally sees God as a spider intent on penetrating her. Amidst of their frustrations, the characters struggle to find meaning. As with other Bergman movies, the deeper questions about life and God are present. It's amazing that he packs this all into such a tight and lean story, with four characters over a single day. He makes use of reflections and light more effectively than anyone – watch for this throughout the movie. The opening and ending scenes are especially meaningful in light of its themes – inner reflection on one's demons, what the people around us mean to us, and whether God exists. There is no easy answer to that last one. von Sydow is cynical and Andersson has a sort of mystical faith until it's disillusioned by the spider imagery. In a beautiful scene at the end, however, Björnstrand says it may exist in the love people show for one another. At the very least, he knows that love exists, and that it helps us in our difficult, meaningless lives. Through all the darkness and difficulty, and though we cannot perceive meaning, looking as we do, "through the glass darkly", there is hope in love. Great film.

IMDBcinephile I think this movie is really the genesis to "Persona" where he would film on the same Island, Faro, he would utilize the idea of illness (not so much convalescing but just after convalescence in a Hospital) and with a predictable manipulation of this character; however, this movie only descends into a style very later on, as we experience the beauty of this somber character, Karin, under the influence of unknown specimens.She gets the best of two worlds supposedly and purportedly, in order for us to engage. However, Bergman's dialogue in this movie is a bit more superfluous than any one I have seen in his oeuvre; it is misguiding in that sense; however it is character driven.She can't thwart her mind, so that she can be liberated from her troubles, and every drop of Rain, a Cuckoo and any solitary sound worsened her emotional state. Between the objective and the subjective - not exactly on the same thing as "Persona" however, but still similar. Minus is a Thespian Actor, Writer and Stage Writer (more allusions to Bergman's lust for art and also his installment into that artistry inventory), the brother who reads a lot and is an avid reader of the Language, but is an adolescent and a Dark and unwholesome character, whose fervor dampens their relationship, and Karin's husband is Martin (Max von Syndow from "The Seventh Seal") torn by the binds of her mind but all in all consoling her without success; she even in one scene has the inability to tell him what her Father scrolled about her (the only bit predictable in the film). Karin (Harriet Anderson) has just withdrew from a Mental Hospital and this is where we watch her unfold as a person, where everything is hid behind the shadows, and is no longer able to stay out in the sojourn island. She becomes querulous and impassioned, but determined and vulnerable; this is a complex character, with a very complex imagination and plagued by the atmosphere that she has been greeted with. There was almost a precursor to the idea that David was writing all the fantasy that was being read out from his book, not yet finished, and yet all of what was transpiring was actually true...I watched this on Film 4, as part of a Season dedicated to this wonderful Human Being and the entity that was the first recipient of the Oscar for Foreign Picture; as she disintegrates, you feel like you've disintegrated into understanding this all; it's Bergman's vivid imagination, however, very welcoming and ostracizing. By the Third Act of the movie, I was sort of out of the place, just like how Karin was as well; it is thematically celestial in it that there is a better place beyond.Bergman's cinematographer Syven Nykvist gives it a luster to that backdrop of water; I wonder if the waves crashing up and down representing peace for Bergman; he did eventually buy a house over there. There's one really startling bit where we see David, go out of control as he has no Tobacco; it's such a distinctive bit, and just like how the movie is powerfully fascinating, and it opens up the emotive of the character; however, I'm not sure why this scene was integral. The movie broadens the horizons of the Island and it also makes it the real serene area, punctuated with the problems of a torn and clinically detached Family, all looking for the way out of their deeply troubled lives. However, this time it's not as abstract as Bergman can accustom you too (only from "Persona", not really "Seventh Seal" and his other works...), however, I always felt it gave you a lurid depiction of what Family life can be like, even under the roof of such a peaceful place. They build facades around their feeling, their distinctions, their characteristics and their honesty, but all it does is tame their normality; it all comes out through Karin, and we notice that it's that place that is doing this to her and making her relapse from her incurable disease... they're sort of feeding it and rendering it incurable.However, this is a 1hr 20mins film and it throws a lot in there; it's deep, it's disconcerting, it's eerie and it's cavernous; nothing poignant, engaging or anything that people might deem "wonderful" in their emotional craving. Watch something that can elaborate on a different kind of story; a more crucially, hard hitting and it deeply disturbing movie, with a wonderful score by Erik Nordgren, that can capture your every state during the experience... it does have a lot of dialogue but I realized this was a set up for the bigger impact of a greater tragedy...

billseper Bergman always does this--asks tons of questions about life and God but never even attempts to answer them. What's his point? None really. His photographic style of cinematography is interesting, and his very sparse use of music as well. He tends to use rooms to great advantage by leaving them sparsely furnished with wooden floors so that the sound is very lively in them. Every movement is heard, and this almost negates the need for musical enhancement in his films. Bergman has great style, and his questions about the world are substantive, but if a man has no answers and goes through life with no opinions, he best stay out of filmmaking.

Sindre Kaspersen With his distinct filming, frequent use of close-ups and through four characters functioning as mirrors to one another Ingmar Bergman (1917-2007) gives thorough depictions of relationships between a father and a daughter, a father-in-law and a son-in-law, a husband and a wife and a sister and a brother. His stringently structured drama is played out during a summer day on an isolated Island surrounded by grand landscapes, where four related characters are misled by a God who has only given suggestions about his presence to the suffering main character, and is a study of character about a woman seeking comfort in her visions of God appearing before her and of a father fighting against his desires to use his daughter's mental regression in his novel.In one of the film's most memorable scenes Ingmar Bergman films the main character as she is in God's possession and placed in the middle of a minimal furnished room where she's surrounded by shadows and light. This particular scene personifies the expressive power of living images and the birth of a magic scene. This August Strindberg-inspired and dialog-driven chamber-piece is masterfully photographed by Swedish cinematographer Sven Nykvist (1922-2006) in black-and-white and incomparably acted by then 18-year-old Lasse Passgård, Max Von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand and especially Harriet Andersson who is unrestrained in her portrayal of her character's versatile emotional range.God's character in this existentialistic study of religious madness which is strongly influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach's atmospheric chamber music, manifests in the brilliantly portrayed light and darkness which is a pivotal aspect in this visionary director's universe.