Review of Winter Light (1963) by Tom A — 17 Dec 2007

Not as well known as other Bergman masterpieces such as The Seventh Seal, Persona or Cries and Whispers -- but just as rich and rewarding for the patient viewer. As an autobiographical stand-in for Bergman himself, Gunnar Bjornstrand plays a sickly pastor (the actor was actually suffering through an illness throughout the production) who begins to doubt the effectiveness of God's power when he is visited by a suicidal member of his congregation (Max von Sydow), who is plunged into depression when he reads that China has nuclear weapons. Not only are Bjornsrand's sermans robotic and meaningless, but he can't even provide comfort when he sits down with von Sydow; he just complains about his own disillusionment with God. Thus, von Sydow kills himself. Bjornstrand also spurs the continuing affections of his once-girlfriend Ingrid Thulin, as he is still in love with his long-dead wife. In an arresting scene, Bjornstrand reads a letter from Thulin, and Bergman shows us her reading directly into the camera, her eyes accusatory and wounded. This is the formal experimentation that Bergman (who is often falsely accused of being too theatrical in his style) would push to the limit in Persona. Bergman treads familar ground in questioning the meaning of faith; the role of God in the everyday, practical lives of men and women (when the pastor delivers to the news of von Sydow's suicide to his loving and desperatly worried wife, she responds by simply walking dry-eyed into the dining room to inform their many children -- simply because that is what she must do, and there is no time for grieving); and how we lash out and hurt those closest to us, and accept pain unblinkingly from those we love (the painfully one-sided relationship between Bjornstrand and Thulin). Film is part of Bergman's Trilogy (including Through A Glass Darkly and The Silence, neither yet seen by me), which together examine a world abandoned by God. Sven Nykvist's cinematography is perfectly austere, revealing every nuance of the pain within these people.

Criterion's DVD has surprisingly few extras: Peter Cowie's discussion of the film mostly examines the autobiographical nature of the film.