Ingmar Bergman was a horror movie director. Don't think so, well look at this film and tell me otherwise. CRIES AND WHISPERS deals with torture (the mental kind). Dead bodies come back to life. Shocking sexual violence. Blood. Pain. Images on the screen are so difficult to watch I had to look away. But what makes this haunting film so frightening isn't that there are boogie men lurking in the shadows, only ourselves.
Karin (Ingrid Thulin, WILD STRAWBERRIES) and Maria (Liv Ullmann, PERSONA) have come to stay with their sister Agnes (Harriet Andersson, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT) on her deathbed. It is the early 20th century and Agnes is suffering painfully from cancer. Her sisters are emotionally distant. The only one that gives Agnes any genuine care is her stocky maid Anna (Kari Sylwan, FACE TO FACE).
Bergman uses flashbacks to define the emotional state of the characters. Agnes remembers her mother's unfair coldness that settled on her and not her other sisters. The fake and flirtatious Maria is having an affair with the doctor David (Erland Josephson, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE) and treats her husband Joakim (Henning Moritzen, THE CELEBRATION) with contempt when he finds out. The prim and stony Karin is married to the aloof Fredrik (Georg Arlin, FANNY AND ALEXANDER) and lashes out at him in unexpected ways. Anna is a kind woman with a deep faith whom had suffered a great tragedy years prior.
Bergman believed that the inside of the soul was red, and the color fills the screen in a sitting room with bright red walls. The characters are dressed in whites and blacks and grays. The color palette is so bold it's hard not to think about what Bergman is trying to say with his choices. As the story develops, watch which characters move from white to black.
Surrounded by scenes of mental anguish from both the excruciating pain Agnes is in to the mental sadism that Karin and Maria engage in, there are moments within that flow over with goodness. Walking a thin line between a motherly instinct and a sexual one, Anna gently lays Agnes face against her bare breast. In another moment of physical connection, Karin and Maria caress after a terrible fight. Bergman drops out the dialogue, which appears to be the sisters kindly reconciling. We don't miss the words at all. Bergman's direction brings the subtext of the women's actions to the surface. Not hearing the words has the same meaning as hearing them. Nothing.
In dealing with character types to a degree, Bergman essential strips down the story to raw emotion. Bergman never tries to manipulate the audience's feelings though. His quiet, cool approach to the material at times keeps us at a distance. But the piercing bursts of anguish, the hum-like score and the unblinking use of long close-up shots create uneasiness in the viewer. For a filmmaker who dealt with issues of faith his whole career, this film is his jealous ode to those whom have innocent faith. Even the priest who comes to pray for Agnes is jealous of her faith. Is the boogie man God, stalking us to punish every little sin then completely absent during our suffering? But there is a reprieve from the horrors of life. In the end when Agnes' relatives offer a keepsake to Anna, she refuses it. She already has her reward; she knew and loved a beautiful woman.
Buy "Cries and Whispers" Here!
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
