Cries & Whispers - Criterion Collection

I first saw this film when it was released in 1972. Everyone on campus was excited--a new Bergman film was an event in the arts community there. So I trooped along, a merry teenager, to see my first Bergman film.

Oh my. The opening scene was unlike anything I'd ever seen, even in a foreign film. The first scene opens on Agnes (played by Harriet Andersson) waking up in pain and thirst. She is obviously dying, and taking her time about it. The opening minutes are some of the most extraordinary in cinema. The harshly sunlit room points up the transparency of Agnes' skin, her parched lips, her ravaged frame. The camera moves in tight for closeups (which is a testament to the makeup artist for this film.)

Agnes' awakening seems far more real than the studied mannerisms of her sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin.) Maria is a silly goose, and Karin is a dour disciplinarian. They are caught in lifeless marriages. Each seeks escape in one form or another. But there is no escape from their sterile lives or their ties to their sister, who must represent their souls which are as parched and dead as Agnes'cancer-riddled body.

This is one of the most unforgettable, if depressing films I've ever seen. Only Kurosawa's "Enkiru" comes close to it in subject manner, and it is a walk in the park by comparison. For sheer film excellence and uniqueness, "Cries and Whispers" stands alone on a frosty mountain peak.

Best seen with a box or two of tissues and some kind of anti-depressant.

There was such a buzz of excitement and curiosity about this film during its initial U. S. release that I would have given almost anything (at age 12) to sneak off and see it. No such luck; I would have to wait another 12 years for the video version and, in retrospect, am glad to have had the extra years. Some of the images in this brilliant collage of thoughts and dreams are far too disturbing to take in as an adult, let alone in childhood. As is the mark of a true classic, CRIES AND WHISPERS grows richer and more meaningful upon each repeated viewing (as do PERSONA, THE PASSION OF ANNA, and SHAME--other classic Bergman entries during this period of his epoch). The meanings of the flashbacks begin to gel in our minds and connect with some of the sisters' subsequent behavior (or not) and the painful, earthbound reality of death and its horrors has rarely been more poignantly portrayed in film. Much credit goes to these wonderful actresses: the legendary Liv Ullmann, whose physical beauty is transcended only by the grace and dignity of her soul; the difficult but finally endearing Ingrid Thulin; the strength and dignity of Harriet Andersson as the dying Agnes--a performance of overwhelming power and conviction that, inexplicably, was absent during the awards seasons.

But, finally, it is the dreamlike authority and insinuation of Bergman's camera that stays with us, scenes so initmate and personal we begin to feel voyeuristic, almost apologetic for watching. Two scenes are most memorable for me: the dying Agnes lying against the maternal breast of housekeeper Anna in a Pieta-like pose of unbearable sadness and the final dream/memory sequence of Agnes remembering a time when she and her sisters were happy and at peace in their mother's garden. The camera lingers on the luminous Harriet Andersson as she wistfully gives grace to her life, "which gives me so much". If those words and the expression on that actress's face don't inspire the deepest, most profound gratitude for the medium of film (and Bergman the Master), I don't know what will. Most highly recommended.

Upon its release CRIES AND WHISPERS was hailed as one of Bergman's finest films. Although it has not quite held onto that original evaluation, it remains a very fine film--a subtle and delicately performed drama as remarkable for its silence as for its occasional moments of dialogue. And in many respects it offers an extremely good introduction to Bergman's work.

Like many of Bergman's films, CRIES AND WHISPERS shows the director's preoccupations with memory, communication, time, community, and death. The story is bleak: Agnes is dying and her sisters Karin and Maria have come to attend her during this final illness--but they prove unable to communicate in a meaningful way with either Agnes or each other, and Agnes' emotional care is left largely to her long-time maid, the devoted Anna.

As the film unwinds, we are bought into the memories of each woman in turn. The dying Agnes (played with powerful realism by Harriet Andersson) not only graples with increasing pain, she recalls with regret the emotional separation that existed between her long-dead mother and herself. Sister Maria (Liv Ullman), a mindless sensualist, recalls an act of adultry that has poisoned her marriage; Sister Karin (Ingrid Thulin), who is emotionally cold, recalls an act of self-mutilation designed to thwart her husband's desires. Only the maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), with a peasant's directness, actually works to be of comfort, even going so far as to cradle Agnes' head on her naked breast and dreaming of comforting Agnes while her sisters fail.

The film is ever so delicately tinged with subtle elements of lesbianism, sadomasochism, and incest, and the emotional problems experienced by Maria and Karin are at least partly sexual in nature--but these are not the focus of the film so much as they are surface indications of a deeper internal turmoil. As to what that deeper turmoil is... Bergman might say it is the nature of life itself. We each stand alone, usually in denial of our own mortality, usually unable to reach each other in any meaningful way. A deep film, and in spite of its occasional awkwardnesses a memorable and touching film. Recommended.

There are two things that will always stand out to me about this film, which stands amongt the first rank of Ingmar Bergman's monumental body of work. Two things, I mean, above and beyond the expected brilliance of the writing and acting. Another reviewer complained about Liv Ullman's natural warmth being choked here by an unexpected characterization. One could just as easily say that it's precisely the choking of one's expectations that Bergman was aiming for, except I think that's stretching things. Quite apart from what someone thinks Ullman should act like, her performance in this film is as harrowing as all of the other sisters.

The first most memorable element of the film is the way the camera is used to characterize the three sisters. Long shots are used for the cold and distant sister, while intense close-ups are used for Ullman's intensely intimate sister. And, as one might expect, middle shots are used for the sister who holds a compromise position between these two extremes. It's not necessarily the case that this kind of filmwork is unprecedented. What makes it so amazing is how Bergman makes it completely natural, even as it is a wholly artificial, even schematic, way of filming the proceedings. There are countless other parallels in the movie (notice the wine and the eating of fish for example), but somehow he manages to create an easily "read" filmic language that at the same time is not so blatantly artsy or obvious that it becomes intrusive. The schematic nature of the cinematography is matched in the screenplay as well, where the "symbolic meaning" of the three sisters (for example, severe asexual versus unbridled hedonist) manages to be felt, and felt as completely natural, without seeming like a bunch of symbolic pawns marched around the screen for our intellectual entertainment. It is very rare to find such an ideal marriage of form and function, and it is one of the true joys of the film to behold.

The second most memorable element of the film is its overall meaning, for want of a better term. The film, shot entirely within interiors, is relentlessly grim. In addition to all of interpersonal trauma being inflicted, the center of it all is the dying sister, who succumbs to disease with truly harrowing intensity. But not even death brings relief for her, since instead of dying she continues to live on in some kind of inexplicable and frightening undeath. When a priest comes to pray for her soul, his faith breaks before our very eyes in an incredibly moving speech and he begs the dying sister to tell him if there is anything beyond the grave. And as the whole narrative slumps toward utter despair, suddenly we are outside for the first time in the movie. This memory of a bright, radiant summer afternoon, with all three sisters smiling and alive together, is voiced over with words to the effect that all of the horror of existence and dying may be redeemed by one solitary moment of perfect happiness.

Now, reject this notion or not, it is a profoundly startling and effective ending, and shows brilliantly how art cannot help being life-affirming, cannot help but to overcome even the cruelest of jokes, the human condition, by turning the vacuum of meaning that would engulf us into the pure and breath-taking vision of art. It is this fact that elevates it from fine to profound, and has ever since left an indelible impression upon me.

This film's message is so powerful and so devastating that everything will get very still while watching this movie. This is Bergman's masterpiece and since he is a cinematic master this makes "Cries and Whispers" one of the greatest films ever made. Be warned: Cries and Whispers is "Swedish art film" slow and bleak but it's message could change the way you think about life. THANK YOU Criterion.

The masterpiece of his most variable decade, 'Cries and Whispers' is Bergman at his most simple and direct. Although a costume drama, it is as stripped down as 'Fanny and Alexander' is ornate. The deliberately unreal, austere setting against which the four female leads exist, as well as the uncluttered costumes, create a rigid tableau effect, broken only by spurts of zoom or jerky camera movements that are as quickly broken off.

The film makes great play with the colours red and white, some critics finding this gynacological mise-en-scene misogynistic, right down to fade-outs steeped in blood-red. Certainly, in the first scene, a harrowing close-up on Harriet Andersson in bed, her face disfigured by unthinkable pain, it is difficult to tell whether she's self-pleasuring, menstruating or in dying agony.

But although the film's imagery is direct, Bergman's narrative - two sisters and a maid await the death from cancer of the heroine, each looking back at a (generally negative, even horrific) sexual past - is as convoluted as ever. The film opens with an astonishing visual symphony of images symbolising dawn and time, a prelude to this story about women who live in a domestic, interior, 'female', timeless time, apart from the real world.

Their 'revenge' on this situation, if you like, is to demolish the certainties of 'reality' - time and narrative become displaced by dreams, visions, imaginings, delusions, fantasies. Even the integrity of the flashbacks, which seem to do so much to reveal charater, are called into question by later information.

Once again with Bergman, genuine physical pain is contrasted with psychic fragmentation, serving to break the coherence of the plot, out of which seep only cries and whispers, the unspoken but persistent horrors and silent Francis Bacon screams that comprise life for most of us.

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...

Not my favorite but powerful and devastating film of the great master.

Agnes is dying of cancer at the end of what one imagines to be late 19th Century, and is taken care of by her sisters Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullman), and the maid Anna (Kari Sylwan). This is one of the purest and most horrifying films I believe Bergman has ever made. A shade of the color red dominates throughout the film, and brings an immediate and naturally convincing mood. All actors contribute with a power and intensity, especially actress Harriet Andersson--whose pain as Agnes is very believable, even enchanting--and are more than well supported by the amazing camera work of Sven Nykvist. That the movie was shot on location in only six weeks shows that this is the work of a brilliant director, highly skilled actors and a professional crew.
The Criterion disc features a 52-minute interview with Ingmar Bergman and Erland Josephson (who appears briefly in the movie), taped for Swedish television in 2000. Interviewed by Malou von Sivers, Bergman and Josephson discuss life, death, and love. Bergman, here at age 82, proves to be a down-to-earth and young-at-heart guy. The sound in the interview (surprisingly enough for a Criterion disc), distorts a bit, and can be quite distracting at times, but is not so bothersome that one wouldn't want to continue listening to what these masters of theater and film have to say (even if the topics barely touch upon their work and careers).
Optional subtitles, as well as an English-dubbed soundtrack are available. The dubbing is surprisingly accurate to the picture, and is done by the actors featured in the movie. At times this accuracy may convince you that the movie was made in English. Still (despite this stunning surprise), I would suggest watching this in Swedish, as intended - at least the first time around.
I watched this movie with a pair of good head-phones, in a comfortable chair, and alone in the dark at three o'clock in the morning. I recommend others to watch it under similar conditions - it adds to the intensity, and one can appreciate the intended mood of the film better if there aren't distractions. I seriously doubt that this picture will disappoint any true fan of good cinema.

Bergman himself considers "Cries and Whispers" to be one of his best films, and many viewers would agree. It is intense, dark, and moving, with many scenes that cling ruthlessly to the memory.

Unfortunately, the movie is both stagey and self-conscious, lacking the fine subtlety that characterizes such films as "Persona" and "Wild Strawberries," and without the natural candor of "Scenes from a Marriage.""C&W" is dominated by a sea of red colors and overly-obvious stage setting in the style of Munch's paintings. A tableau based on Michelangelo's Pieta is especially heavy-handed.

Despite these problems -- or perhaps even because of them -- newcomers to Bergman or to "art films" may find the extra finger-pointing helpful and inoffensive. Others who are looking for a similarly dark treatment in a color movie by Bergman might prefer "Autumn Sonata." In any case, "C&W" is an essential film for all of us Bergman fanatics: its many points of brilliance -- especially in the first half -- manage to outshine its nontrivial weaknesses.

All of Bergman's best films explore emotional and psychological terrain that almost no other filmmaker has dared to go near. "Cries and Whispers" certainly ranks among his best. With only minimal dialogue, Bergman uses stunning imagery to lay bare the inner minds and souls of four women - one dying of tuberculosis, her two emotionally distant sisters, and the family maid, who seems to be the only one able to deal with the mortality that they are all forced to confront. There is more introspection here than in many epic novels, and the concluding scene, depicting the moment when one can confront death and achieve grace, is both shattering and comforting. Beautifully done; a must-see for anyone who cares about films that examine our most primal feelings and what we choose to do with those feelings.