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ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01M9IAUED

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4.3 156 ratings

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Palliative Care before palliative care…

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2022

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“Up the morphine drip…” as I would summarily tell my palliative care physician friend when he was called during one of our tennis matches, which was my invariable and flippant clinical assessment. Ingmar Bergman reminds us that the morphine drip is only a recent aid in helping us all face what a painful death might be, in the case of this movie, from cancer.

I’m doing a bit of a Bergman retrospect, re-viewing and reviewing many of his movies that I first saw at my favorite one-and-only Atlanta art theatre in the 1970’s. I’ve recently again viewed and reviewed “Wild Strawberries” and “Through a Glass Darkly.” “Cries and Whispers” is now the third movie in this retrospect, and it is definitely not a “first date” movie.

The time period is never explicitly stated but the use of candles for illumination suggest it is late 19th century, and hence the lack of pain medications. Agnes, played by Harriet Andersson is the one dying from cancer. Her two sisters, Karin, played by Ingrid Thulin, Maria, played by Liv Ullmann, are present to provide emotional support. But the real emotional support comes from Anna, a devoted servant. There are a few men in the movie, in supporting roles – and are non-supporting, being feckless, self-centered and shallow. In fact, Karin and Maria are likewise, with the only decent people being Anna, the servant and Agnes, who is dying.

The acting of Harriet Andersson, as Agnes, in her death agony is superlative. Bergman uses unusual camera angles on Ingrid Thulin's face, when she is engaged in one of her misanthropic rants. Bergman also uses a room with an all-red décor: rugs, drapes, wallpaper and even the actresses have on red dresses. The symbolism of all that is beyond me. Liv Ullmann, of course, is quite attractive, knows it, and displays it to her advantage.

There are a few sidebars to Agnes’ death agony, all rather tawdry. Ullmann continues her affair with the doctor and there is her husband’s reaction when he realizes what has occurred (again). And there are the hierarchical relationships between those of a certain class, born with that proverbial silver spoon in their mouth, and their servants, and how they should not be “spoiled” with a bit of human decency.

A timely reminder that with all the often-justified criticism of Big Pharma, et al., there have been some impressive advances in the creation of medicines to treat illness, including easing the pain during the final exit. Bergman tackles a subject most of us would rightly not want to dwell on. Assuredly, an hour-and-a-half of dwelling was more than sufficient. I was glad that it was over and anticipate no re-viewing. Just flat-out, too grim. 4-stars.

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vodk

Pain, Love, Hate, God, Death...Yet Another Bergman Masterpiece.

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2006

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How many masterpieces can one director make? In the case of Ingmar Bergman, the answer would be plenty. This is one beautiful, but very painful and at times horrifying film. I think I've yet to see another film that depicts the pain, suffering and despair of dying to such vividness that like the characters, one almost feels the need to look away. The story itself is fairly simple - a woman is in the final stages of cancer/tuberculosis and her two sisters and maid take care of her in her final days - but Bergman's unique narrative style and the complexity and depth of his script turn what at first seems a horror show into a profound meditation on faith, love and mortality. Bergman's direction is simply too perfect. The way the film is conceived visually couldn't be more evocative of its themes. The intensity of the color red to convey the hell these characters are living, and the chamber-like, claustrophobic atmosphere it creates is suffocating and exhausting. Sven Nykvist's Oscar-winning cinematography is simply one of the most inventive and unique I've ever seen in a movie. Bergman's narrative strategy is incredibly thoughtful and effective; it's like the scenes flowed into each other, and despite the horror we are to endure, there is such tact, sensitivity, attention to detail and a feeling of intimacy to every scene. It's simply glorious to behold, appreciate and let yourself be taken by the emotions and insights this film has to offer. All four actresses give spectacular performances: Harriet Andersson (Agnes) is searing physical pain personified, Liv Ullmann (Maria) is so nuanced and real in her flight sensuality (one extended scene that is a close-up to her face is astonishing in the incredible nuances of expressiveness and what the character is trying to conceal but can't), Ingrid Thulin (Karin) is chilling to the bone (and that one scene that is about mutilation in a very sensitive place is for sure one I'll never forget) and Kari Sylwan (Anna) is pure warmth, dedication and love. Bergman has a fame for depicting a bleak and pessimistic view of the world, and I won't argue with that, but I don't think his humanism is addressed very often. I had heard so many things about how depressing and horrifying this film is, and it is indeed, but it is not hopeless. Yes, Bergman suggests that the world can a horrible place and the human experience is full of pain, loneliness and cruelty, but he also suggests that if we extend our love to one another and let ourselves be loved, the burden won't be as hard to bare, and that there will be moments that will bring us love, happiness and grace, as Agnes says in her beautiful and haunting soliloquy. Agnes manages to find solace and consolation even though she's living the most excrutiating hell because she allows herself to love and be loved, and her confrontation with death won't be as terrifying. Maria and Karin on the other hand, as the film suggests, will have to endure the pain and fear of dying in utter loneliness because they don't allow themselves to be loved and have lost the ability to love as well. The film is also bold and insightful enough to suggest that the most awful of circumstances in which a human being can be is paradoxically what strengthens one's faith and love, therefore sustaining one's existence. An amazing film.

A Masterpiece.

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The Sweet poetry of Pus

though like any great work of art

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2015

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This certainly gets my vote as one the most insightful films about human suffering out there. The more attentive viewer will find more wisdom herein than is to be gleaned from all the combined nonsense of quacks, of a positivist orientation, who reduce all human suffering to its physical properties under the pretense of demystifying it.

Although set at the end of the 19th century, the film deals with themes that give the work a trans-historical relevance, though like any great work of art, it requires the full investment of one's faculties if one is to prize out its insights into human suffering. Some may find it pretentious, but then again, some people find anything beyond their powers of comprehension to be either mad or pretentious, consistent with the truth that the smaller the mind, the greater the assumption of infallibility and omniscience on the part of its possessor. Such reactions, which are common amongst viewers of Bergman's films, are little more than ego-saving devices that allow the viewer to rationalize away his own incompetence. As Blake said, "that which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care."

One of the things that really resonated with my own experience was the depiction of the loneliness of terminal illness, although I'm in remission. In terms of insight into this experience, the film has perhaps only been paralleled by Pialat's "La Gueule Ouverte". Dealing with such an illness represents an extremity of experience which inevitably leads to estrangement, because the company of the dying conjures up in fuller relief our own preoccupations with our mortality, and there is always the possibility of vicariously experiencing the fear which inevitably besets such people through contact with them, which is why society, underneath all the self-elevating, sanctimonious rhetoric, treats people experiencing extreme suffering as so many emotional contaminants, around whom a sort of cordon sanitaire must be drawn, to stop others from being contaminated with their suffering by suggestion. Bergman unflinchingly portrays the selfish attitudes of people in relation to the terminally-ill, though you could easily substitute for this anyone undergoing the extreme distress of, say, "schizophrenics" and people suffering from the supposed illness, depression.

One of the recurrent thematic concerns of Bergman is the withdrawal into cynicism and egotism of his characters, and this film is no different. In his earlier films, such as "Wild Strawberries", and "Summer Interlude", hope of reconciliation with humanity was possible, but "Winter Light" (correct me if I'm wrong) inaugurated a series of films portraying characters whose withdrawal into the cynicism and egotism of which I speak seemingly consigns them to a slow death by emotional privation, something which speaks to something fundamental about the condition of modern man.

Bergman, in films like this, dramatizes the internal struggle of people, pulled one moment towards, and the next away, from each other by the centripetal forces that bring people closer to each other, and the centrifugal forces that pull us apart; in the former case, our need for human contact, love and tenderness, and anchorage in a network of social support that cushion the blows of treacherous fortune and renders more bearable the bitter pill of conflict with others; and on the other, our experience of man's spitefulness, treachery, hypocrisy, cruelty, of how little people are to be trusted, and the predominance of purely mercenary and prudential considerations in human relations, all of which tutors a man not to get too close to others.

Most men at some critical juncture in their existence, as Bergman dramatizes in his films, set amidst the fragments of their shattered ideals and illusions, undergo an epiphany into the cynicism of the world, thereupon resolving to keep people at (what seems to them) a healthy remove from themselves, lest they expose themselves to any unnecessary suffering through close contact with others. Having had a mockery made of the sacred image of man they cherish in their bosom (based on the not unreasonable fear that to do so is to deliver it over to the bellies of cannibals, figuratively speaking of course), men withdraw into cynicism and egotism, hoping to protect themselves thereby, but as Bergman illustrates, they end up held captive by that which they originally sought protection from, as their need for human contact asserts itself.

Reality, as Bergman shows in his films, rides roughshod over our ideals, clips the wings of imagination in flight, while fate takes sinister pleasure in showing our every hope and dream to be delusive, so that by the end of life, any man in his right mind will go to his grave, seized of the fact that he has been duped by hope, and that life is a pointless Sisyphean slog signifying sod-all, as contentedly as a man goes to his bed after an exhausting day's work.

Sartre once said that hell is other people. To live is to find oneself poised precariously on the edge of a promontory, jutting out over an abyss into which, consciously or not, other people, or life itself, in all its vicissitudes, pushes you, making it a thing surely to be remarked that more people don't top themselves.

Yet as Bergman shows, hell is also no people at all. When we withdraw into cynicism and egotism as a protective measure to forestall the eventuality of being exposed to more hurt, we shut ourselves off from the things that sustain life, but which as Bergman shows, expose also to more suffering. In life, there are no simple binary choices between good and bad, between that which preserves and harms us. Instead, a man must choose between the rack and the wheel, between different torture mechanisms, and human suffering is inescapable.

The best man can do is try as best he can to navigate the tempestuous waters separating Scylla and Charybdis. Avoidance of one danger exposes man to another. The cynicism we withdraw into for protection from a world that repels and disillusions us, as is the case with so many characters in Bergman's films, exposes us to the dangers inherent in estrangement from one's fellows, whereas getting close to others likewise entails much suffering.

The fable of the porcupines beautifully illustrates this dilemma, and so do this and many other films in Bergman's oeuvre.

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starlightspacelab

Red.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 21, 2013

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Another Bergman masterpiece. The acting performances of Liv, Ingrid and Harriet are of an ultra high level. The film starts with sunrays through the trees and a view of the large house. Within the house the color red is dominant. The first minutes you only hear clocks ticking. There are so much details worked out in this film. It is not going to be an easy movie. It is about death, about friendship and relationships. No one seems to be happy. No one want to be touched except for the dying character Agnes played by Harriet. When the priest is crying when he declares that Agnes her faith is stronger than his it is one of the many highlights of this unique Bergman masterpiece. Not to be missed in any collection. A red Bergman masterpiece. Red the colour of love. Of blood. Amongst others.

sarah waters fan north east

a roller coaster of emotion

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2013

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the acting in this film is excellent. it has you feeling everything from total pity for the sister who is dying of cancer, and the maid who cares for her better than her sisters, to shock and disgust when one of the supposedly sane well sisters mutilates herself. it was a very difficult film to watch because of the subject matter ie death but it's worth viewing because it is well directed and compelling, like all seven of the Ingmar bergman movies I've seen. perhaps this work was cathartic for bergman as his wife was dying around about the time he shot it. I would recommend only adults over 18 should watch this as guided because it is heavy sometimes horrible stuff.

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Patmill one

sisters

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 4, 2014

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bergman experimenting with colour in this bleak drama about the relationship of three sisters one who is dying, and the inter relationship of the sisters and how unhappy their own lives are. th maid tends to produce the values of life into the film. when caring for the sister who is dying and is more of a sister than a maid. enthralling drama and another great from bergman.

Dr Robert E Blackburn

Very good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2013

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An extraordinary film, though not alt all everyone's cup of tea, as I have always realised. Once seen, never forgotten, like most of Bergman's work.

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