Cries & Whispers

If you're sick of the current trend of having movies use a mostly teal color palette with orange for the explosions, then this is the movie for you. Ingmar Bergman and his cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, use a palette of red, red, red, red, and red as a backdrop for their story of three sisters in circa-1900 Sweden. Agnes (Harriet Andersson) is dying of cancer, and her two sisters Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann) come to comfort her in her final days. Not that they're much comfort, since the whole family is dysfunctional for reasons that are never clearly delineated. And they all have bizarre sexual hangups.

I'm sure I'll be in the minority, but I found that when it comes to dysfunctional families, this movie pales in comparison to Bergman's later Autumn Sonata. There, the characters are real people and it's easy to identify with them. Here, they seem like little more than ciphers standing in for basic human emotions. It doesn't help that the film is grindingly tedious when it isn't being gratuitously creepy (in the creepy old uncle way, not in the horror movie way). What was the point of the "dream" sequence toward the end, anyways? 5/10 for the story, 9/10 for the cinematography, which won Nykvist an Oscar - it's not just the overwhelming use of red that makes the cinematography interesting. Since I think story is worth more than cinematography, at least to me, I give it a six, mainly because it is Bergman and I want to cut him some slack.

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 excruciating 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.

A Masterpiece.

The idea of this film that is considered by many as Bergman's crown achievement came to him in his house at Faro where he lived by himself for sometime in a melancholy state of mind after a rather painful breakup. One image kept coming to him and it was a very vivid and persistent image of a red room (red walls, red furniture) and four women sitting at the window in the room and dressed by the fashion of the beginning of the 20th century. He could not shake the image out of his mind and he knew that the only way to deal with it would be to start writing about the women – who were they, what was their relationship, their lives, their fates?.. He also knew that should the movie be made of his writing, the dominating color of it would be red. Bergman talked with affection and gratitude about his friend and long time collaborator Swen Nykwist who spent many days creating the passionate haunting red world of "Cries and Whispers. The title came to Bergman from one of the reviews on a Mozart's sonata (he does not remember which one). The sonata was described as sounds of cries and whispers…

"Cries and Whispers" is about pain, death, love, lust, hate, and self-loathing. There are more than one scene in the film that I found unbearable, horrifying and depressing. In the same time, it is about beauty and power of life, every minute of it - how little we appreciated it until it is too late. Typical Bergman's subjects, Bergman's actresses giving amazing performances, strikingly beautiful – it even hurts your eyes cinematography by Sven Nykvist - typical Bergman's masterpiece - what less do we expect from him? I admire the brilliance of it: acting, cinematography, Bergman's simple but devastating approach to Death as an inevitable part of life. The ending is heartbreaking - with Harriet's face and her words from beyond the grave about appreciating every minute of life...

Powerful and devastating film.

To see Liv Ullmann, whose nature is so warm and natural, play a role in which her warmth is superficial and fraudulent, is a little offsetting; yet, great actress that she is, she pulls it off, so that if I had never seen her before, I would believe she was that way.

"Cries and Whispers," much ballyhooed, I recall, when it appeared, seems too psychoanalytically intense today; dark and mysterious, beautifully filmed in an intense red-yes, very striking against the northern cold, but somehow not entirely convincing. The people are cynically presented as tortured animals caring only for themselves, without a scrap of genuine feeling for others. Anna, the maid, is the exception, so that she may serve as a foil for the rest of them.

Harriet Andersson gives a striking performance as Agnes who is dying of cancer. I have seen what she portrays, and can tell you she expressed it in all its horror and hopelessness. Ullmann plays Maria, one of her sisters who touches others easily, but without real feeling, so that the touches mean nothing. For those who grew up cinematically during the seventies, she was a great, expressive, sensual, flawless star of the screen, one of Ingmar Bergman's jewels. Bergman himself of course was already a legend by the time this film was made, a great master who did what he wanted and what he felt, yet never lost sight of the audience. What he seems to be saying here is we are desperate creatures living a cold and ultimately empty existence. The ending clip seems an after thought that seeks our redemption, but it arrives too little too late. We are lost.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

The color red holds so many facets of symbolism in this picture. If you've seen Woody Allen's "Manhattan", then you may remember when he called Ingmar Bergman the only person he could truly consider to be a cinematic genius. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bergman digs deep into the human psyche... only he does it cinematically, which is an even greater achievement. This is just one of those rare, important films. *****/*****