Tagline: Man is the king of beasts
Uncanny but I watched this because of Kristoffer Borgli's The Drama that features the poster for this specific film. Was curious to see any influences and realised I haven't actully seen this Bergman famous piece from 1969. It's actually better titled originally, as A Passion / En passion.
His first 'real' film in color, brilliantly shot by Sven Nykvist (did I say Brilliantly? ;), masterfully restored in 2016 by the Sweedish Film Institute and thus issued on the Criterion collection, the copy I saw. Third part of "the island trilogy" (Fårö island that is), following Hour of the Wolf and Shamem and shots in the same sets, in only 45 days.
Tough, dark, cruel, bitter to the core, includes these postmodern interviews of actors -Von Sydow, Andersson, Ullmann and Josephson, all four brilliant, all four Bergman ensemble troopers to the core-, that cut into the narrative, no music score, an aloof narrator voiceover (Bergman himself), and I see even an influence on Tarkovski's The Sacrifice.
As character Elis Vergérus (erland Jospehson) observes: ’I don’t imagine that I reach into the soul with this photography. I can only register an interplay of forces, large and small. You look at this picture and imagine things. All is nonsense All play, all poetry. You can’t read another person being with any claim of certainty. Not even pain gives a reaction.’
it can be exactly what the Auteur direktor says.
"This time he was Andreas Winkelman."
Bergman's own notes on the film and more on Bergman's site here.
