Review of The Virgin Spring (1960) by Aldo M — 28 Nov 2016

In a sense, it is a story of rape & revenge. However, being from the hands of Ingmar Bergman, it is far from being a b-movie. This is AAA.

Just a couple years after The Seventh Seal, the action is built in the Swedish middle age once more. It is built as a theater tragedy, and, as so, it grows up to the to the tragic resolution.

The film is not a splatter at all, however the violence here is brutal: both the crime and the revenge. Not a drop of real blood is shown (and also fake blood very scarcely, and only once), nothing to be compared to Tarantino, for example: but, while in a Tarantino the violence is obviously a fake, here it is emotionally real: it strikes you in your guts and your soul.

However, the poetic moments are many: everything is immersed into the magic of the great Nordic forest, and quotations to the religion - both Christian and pagan - are many: notable the representation of the last supper, repeated twice, and, in the end, what I can only compare to "La Pietà", by Michelangelo: that is what leave the viewer, leaving the cinema, with a beautiful feeling inside.

Thank to my local cine club for finding and showing these milestone of the cinema.