Review of Cries and Whispers (1972) by Andrew R — 02 Sep 2011

Ingmar Bergman's disturbing study on suffering and cruelty, photographed gorgeously by Sven Nykvist. Being a chamber piece (as are most of Bergman's best works), these characters are confined to small spaces, and Bergman does a particularly good job ensuring that his audience suffocates right alongside his four powerhouse actresses.

Undoubtedly it is this rectangle of thespians that makes the film so emotional, and so painful. Harriet Andersson leads the performances with one that contains little speaking and much agony; she is the film's center, and its most intriguing puzzle.

Kari Sylwan is her blindly faithful maid, a character with both the innocence of a child and the weary quiet of a mother. Ingrid Thulin is Andersson's selfish and sadistic sister, a woman whose only curiosity in life is in the excitement of pain, and its infliction on herself and others.

And Liv Ullmann, perhaps the greatest actress of Bergman's troupe, plays Andersson's other sister, a complex person who faces reality as if it were a series of small plays, not daring to take in the troubling truth before her eyes.

The pain these actresses portray would be frankly unbearable were it not for the ironic beauty of Nykvist's cinematography. Without its careful grounding they would be only figures in Bergman's experiment, machines with the intent only of producing tragedy.

Instead, they become interesting case studies all, each begging for its own concentration and each suggesting a different horror.