Cries and Whispers

Saw Cries and Whispers, an Ingar Bergman film. He is in full-on inscrutable lady mode with this one, but let us attempt a bit of scrutiny anyway. The film surrounds four women: Anna the maid, Karin the eldest sister, Maria the youngest, and Agnes the deathly ill middle sister. They have a strange, intense relationship together and we come to know each in a series of vignette-ish flashbacks. Anna has lost her daughter at a young age and has seemingly transferred her matronly feelings onto the dying Agnes. Maria is a doll-like woman who affects an innocent, winsome facade, masking sophisticated dissipation. Karin has become disgusted with the impersonal nature of her marriage and transfers this disgust onto all things which seem 'nice' on the surface. She therefore retreats into an intense but undirected cruelty. Agnes is sweet but is dying in a ghastly, visceral way.

Agnes, we see, has sweetly believed her sisters to be good, loving people. As Agnes dies however, their inner demons (which seemed to be held in check purely for Agnes' sake) are let out to play. There is an intelligent idea here about the deluded nature of the sister Agnes. Her sisters are clearly not the loving duo she imagines, but her fantastic idea of them becomes reality, purely by its own virtue. Bergman eventually introduces a miracle (in the straight-faced, magical-realism way he likes to do (see also Fanny and Alexander, which post-dates this film)) which further reenforces the fact of Agnes' sisterly delusions. Only the discounted Anna remains kind and faithful but her attachment, I feel (and believe I am meant to feel,) is transferred, morbid, and unnatural.

The color red must also be talked about. The film is almost all red. Fades to red indicate beginnings and ends of scenes, Maria attempts to seduce a doctor clad in a red dress, red wine and blood figure heavily in Karin's flashback, Agnes is confined to a red bed, and the entire house is carpeted, wallpapered, draped in bright red. It's difficult to identify any specific interpretation for all this red however, because red is the color that everything lives in. Perhaps it is femininity? Or morbidity? Bits of white appear here and there which I believe indicate purity or mercy and some black too which predictably indicates severity. Perhaps the red just as predictably indicates passion, or danger? This one I have to leave to the actual critics.

An interesting film, it could easily launch entire papers into many topics. It's not overtly engaging or moving, but it is striking and heady. A potent mix of ideas.