Shame

When Liv Ullman's character says, "I feel like I'm in someone else's dream and they're going to be ashamed when they wake up," she is referring not only to being an unwilling player in society's war games, she is referring to being an ignorant participant in life itself. At the film's end, when she says that she had a dream that she had a child and she was trying to take care of it, but she forgot something else, the implication is that she has forgotten what she has learned in the war she's just survived, that like her own mother before her, she will be unable to pass on any vital lessons to her own child. And, therefore, the cycle of the shame of ignorance will continue...ad infinitum...

A gruelling watch, but one of Bergman's finest films. Interesting to compare this with The Hour of the Wolf, as both feature the same lead actors as artists (or an artist and his wife) who have taken sanctuary on an island. In the earlier film it's largely inner demons that lead to von Sydows disintegrating personality (at least that's how I read it) whereas here it's very much circumstances beyond his control.

Much has been written about the unsympathetic central characters, particularly von Sydow's. For me there are flashes of a good (if flawed) man early in the film, but one who copes badly with adversity. The flaws become all that is left as his humanity is gradually eroded by one horror after another.

I watched A Passion (Ullmann and von Sydow on their island again) soon after this, and was amazed to recognise many of the same locations. And then there's a dream sequence...

An interesting and always gripping film, Bergman's "Shame" is completely devoid of any humor. From frame one, it's an unrelentingly downbeat and depressing film, albeit one that lingers in the mind due to it's haunting images. Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow are brilliant as the politically uninvolved couple who suffer the terrifying consequences of being caught up in the midst of a civil war. The issues behind the war are never defined and the two opposing sides are virtually indistinguishable in that they both practice indiscriminate torture and murder. The shame of the title applies on numerous levels throughout the film. The couple find themselves capable of acts that would have ordinarily been inconceivable, as they struggle to survive the onslaught of catastrophes. They betray their souls, their friends and even each other in a desperate attempt to simply survive another day.

If there's a lesson to any of this, it may be that no one can afford to be ignorant of the issues and the world around them or else they will be ill-equipped to deal with them when they inevitably intrude on even the most isolated of lives.

The black and white cinematography is stunning and the suspense is often unbearable, especially when the couple finds themselves at the mercy of renegade soldiers who cannot be reasoned with. The downbeat and confusing ending, however, does not satisfy...it seems a bit pretentious and leaves the viewer feeling a bit cheated. Nevertheless, a worthwhile and engrossing film from a master director.

It's difficult to choose a representative film from the entire Ingmar Bergman's filmography. Each film deserves a comment because it's like a piece of art in its own.

I chose "Skammen" because I saw it recently and because I think the message -although being a 1968 film- is still valid. The subject is quite simple: a couple is surprised by war, which changes forever the existence of the two people. We can discover their real feelings and their real values.

We can find shame in more levels.

First, husband's shame for not being able of giving a child to his woman. He's also an extremely coward man in the first half of the movie, he feels shame also for that.

Second, wife's shame for not being a mother -she feels frustrated. She's shameful also because she has betrayed her man with an important man of their country's army.

Third. They both feel shame because they pretend being friends of this man, who saves them from tortures and jail. (They're actually accused of being traitors, in expressing other political opinions.) As a compensation, that man come to their home whenever he wants and take advantage of his position for becoming a woman's lover. The husband lets things going like this, it's the price he pays for a kind of freedom...

Fourth. Shameful is of course war and life during it.

Bergman makes a flawless movie, he studies people as they are. Without big budgets and huge sets. A simple film, deep, superbly photographed in black and white.

'Shame' as it is best known world wide, is probably most underrated Bergman movie at the moment. Or perhaps little seen is more correct term, as most people who have seen it consider 'Shame' to be among the Bergman's bests. And the film is too great for such unnoticed film.

Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow star as wife and husband getting caught in the horrors of war. Although the war is shown mostly without epic battle scenes, rather shown just by soldiers marching by and fighter jets flying over, the sound of imminent doom is in every frame. 'Shame' is wonderful character study and what war does to a peoples' psychology. Max von Sydow's Jan is intelligent, but somewhat cowardly man. Some can even call him weak, while Liv Ullmann's Eva is strong and independent woman, who really cares about her husband. The character descriptions seem simple at first - strong wife, weak husband - but there's much more hidden in these people. Although Jan is not your typical macho guy, his intelligence compensate lot of his cowardice. And Eva, although strong woman, is still in need of some support from her husband. While the war comes closer and closer we see their relationship starting to fall apart, and then getting stronger again, until they get right into the middle of war horrors, with both sides riding over their farm. They both grow cold and stay together just for habit. Jan becomes cruel and violent, while Eva becomes not exactly submissive, but rather distant.

Bergman has stated his dissatisfaction with the film in several occasions, and never considered it his best work, but 'Shame' is must see film.