Earlier today I was at the theater and saw a production of Fanny & Alexander. While still not very far from Bergman's original, it placed the film in a different light and made me eager to continue down Bergman's filmography. Next in line was Winter Light which somewhat blew me away.
The film starts in a small church as the sick and troubled Gunnar Björnstrand is giving communion to a few citizens of the tiny village. Nykvist's cinematography quickly sets the mood and gives the film a claustropobic and intimate feel featuring odd closeups that seem to channel the Dreyer we recognize from The Passion Of Joan Of Arc. Björnstrand is physically ill and is troubled by his falling out with christianity, he's unsure of his role as the little society's priest.
The claustrophobic feel of the film gives a sense of urgency and finality to the film. We're unsure of what's to happen next but we can be quite sure that things won't be good when it's finally over. There's an apparent similarity to Bresson, not only through Nykvist's photography but also through the minimal nature of the film. There's no music in the film (not counting the organ during communion) but there's a heavy focus on sound design which, although shoddy at times, offer a discomfort as the ticks of clocks are heard or the deafining sound of a train blocks out what characters are saying. The silence, or complete lack of is both draining and painful as we're forced to see and hear everything, or absolutely nothing.
There's also an apparent influence on the Hungarian director Béla Tarr both in the way the film is shot but also in similarities between the characters and the timeless nature of the film. Winter Light takes place in a little village that the world seem to have forgotten but if it weren't for the cars the film could have taken place more or less anywhere during the past hundred years or so. The theme is also a very common one, with the theme of losing faith for different reasons being a big one. Björnstrand's character is falling out of faith which leaves him desperate while Von Sydow's character's loss of faith leaves him ending his life. The film's ending is somewhat hazy for me though, I'm not quite sure what Allan Edwall's monologue about the suffering of Christ means in the bigger picture and I'm equally dumbfounded by how the organ player ties the ending of the film into that of Through A Glass Darkly which I interpreted in a very different fashion "God is love. Love is God. Love is the proof of God's existence.". There's definitely more to the underlying themes of Winter Light but I hope to be able to interpret it better when I inevitably return to it.
What impressed me the most about this film is Nykvist's cinematography, which might rival his work in Cries & Whispers which I had previously claimed to be his strongest work. The opening shots of the different sides of the church, the closed off, foreign feel of the church and the surrounding land aswell as the many well executed close ups were a sight to behold. They alone were enough to keep me invested in the film but alongside the many talented actors and Bergman's ability to put a unique feel on a film makes it the experience that it now is. I also want to credit the sound design which works as yet another well done element of the film. Echoing footsteps, creaking doors and ticks from clocks make the film the tense and claustrophobic expereience that it is coupled with the hectic, stressful ones from when Björnstrand leaves the church, where the river drowns out the conversation or the passing train makes it unable to hear what Björnstrand was saying. It's an effective addition to the storytelling which proves Bergman's talent yet again.
Winter Light [1963]
dir. Ingmar Bergman
8
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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