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A quiet week-end of...anguish.
A quiet week-end of human fear, we might call it, indeed of anguish. Little more than twenty-four hours of a short...nightmare vacation for the four members of a wealthy Swedish family, on a windy islet of the Baltic Sea. It could be Faro. Rhythmed by the Suite No. 2 in D minor for cello (E.B. Bengtsson) by J.S. Bach, it's a quartet of figures that inaugurates "the chamber cinema" of I. Bergman. Essentially tying this singular example, along with the next two that follow, of Bergman's cinema to the movement known as Kammerspielfilm, which emerged in 1921 as a reaction to early expressionism through the initiative of the screenwriter Karl Mayer and the director Lupu-Pick. And it also opens the so-called "trilogy of God" or "absence of God" or "religious". Continued, indeed, with "Winter Light" and "The Silence". The film's mainstays, in fact, the cornerstones, are basically two. 1) On one side there’s Karin, the sole female character (we know how Bergman is always at the very least understanding, if not outright indulgent, towards his female characters), but also a monolithic, enigmatic character, difficult to fully comprehend, deep and fragile, armed only with her body and her lucid madness; in a spasmodic search for healing and for God (whom she believes to see even in a black spider that tries to possess her); in search of a true relationship with her father, the writer, cold and austere, who makes her a literary case, exploiting her illness and making her the subject of his work; in search of a solid and, finally, credible relationship with her doctor husband, also sweet and affectionate; in search of a true relationship between sister and brother with Minus, which is not only familial and familiar, or just sentimental, but even physical, hence on the verge of incestuous. On the other side, the three male characters: as usual, not very transparent, not very clear (or are they too clear?), not very loyal, in a word, not very positive. Obviously, each seen through their problematic relationships with Karin. Respectively: wife, daughter, sister. Further testimony to Bergman's alleged misanthropy, often evoked by some critics. "It's an inventory before the sale. ... my intention was to describe a case of religious hysteria” (Ingmar Bergman in his diary book Images. One of the most anguishing and shocking films about madness. Once again co-maker of Bergman’s masterpiece Sven Nyquist and his wonderful black & white, but...in color photography. 1962 Oscar for best foreign film.
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