CRIES AND WHISPERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cancer, Bergman Style, on Criterion BD

Cries and Whispers (1972)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan,
Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers is enclosed in a thick, deep red membrane; every frame splashed with a kind of sickeningly putrid menstrual blood which has been expunged from some horrific, barren place of hatred and regret, enveloping the pain of its three sisters Agnes (Harriet Andersson), Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann), never allowing the force of healing and relief to take over completely and allow the characters a greater sense of love and fulfillment.

The film's greatness cannot be denied. It has haunted me for 40+ years and at several points throughout my life, it's been there for me: casting shadows of darkness, revealing depths of despair, exuding feelings of longing and generously displaying its stunning cinematic virtuosity. Much like an old friend who remains just around the corner, or rather, not unlike a monkey upon our collective backs, the film exists to remind us how important it is to grasp whatever sliver-like shards of joy life affords us, lest we become wholly consumed by the sheer misery of it all.

At the film's centre is Anna (Kari Sylwan). She is the heart pumping with lifeblood as opposed to the putrescence of anguish, the expulsion of toxic poison, lying in wait to envelope life and upon discovering there's nothing there, it gushes and sticks to those bereft of kindness and caring.

Agnes has cancer. She's dying. Karin and Maria have come to the family's country estate to preside over the death-watch. Anna is the plump domestic who runs the household and takes care of Agnes. Bergman takes us through the stages of the final agony by deftly providing us with a series of flashbacks which inform the current situation. Childhood for the sisters was sheer joy. They were very close. Their mother (also played by Liv Ullman) is loving, but often seems distracted, if not distant. At one point we see her infused with such utter, quiet sorrow that it seems to inform everything in the film. We learn that Agnes was always the odd, ugly duckling and that she remained unmarried and alone, save for the loyal Anna (whose own child died tragically many years earlier, but to whose picture she examines everyday and prays to with deep devotion).

Karin married a petty diplomat. In spite of wealth and travel, she hates him - so much so, that one night, smelling (no doubt) of the greasy, rancid-looking fish he wolfed down over supper, her husband awaits Karin's conjugal visit, and she privately masturbates with a shard of crystal from a broken wine glass, only to present him with the sight of the blood gushing from between her legs and smearing it all over her almost cruelly lascivious face.

Maria, the most frivolous of the three sisters also married into wealth - a husband with such a weak, spineless demeanour that he seems born to be a cuckold and to be cuckolded. She does what she must and cuckolds him, but unlike his dalliances away from the conjugal bed, she chooses to soil it within their home. Even more sickening is that her primary love interest is the creepy local doctor (Erland Josephson) who coldly presides over Agnes's final days.

Bergman paints a portrait of a family united by blood, but not much else. Whatever love they had for each other in childhood has turned to stone. At one point, Karin lets it all spill out to Maria, who responds blankly to these words tinged with bile:

"Do you realize I hate you and how foolish I find your insipid smile and your idiotic flirtatiousness? How have I managed to tolerate you so long and not say anything? I know of what you're made - with your empty caresses and your false laughter. Can you conceive how anyone can live with so much hate as has been my burden? There's no relief, no charity, no help! There is nothing. Do you understand? Nothing can escape me for I see all!"

Poor Agnes desperately wants her sisters to be with her and touch her in these final hours, but more often than not, they sit immobile in the gorgeous parlour outside her room. What Karin confesses to a Maria who does not bother to challenge the horrendous assertions is enough to prove that the desperate desires of Agnes will not be fulfilled. She'll go to her grave never feeling the love of her siblings.

Finally, it's left to Anna to hold Agnes close to her warm, inviting, motherly bosom. During one unbelievably creepy and nightmarish sequence, after Agnes's final internal combustion of pain followed by her last gurgling croaks of life, she is dead, yet her consciousness remains in her sick room. She asks for her sisters to visit one by one to assist in her spiritual passage to the other side. Here they fail miserably and again, it is up to the servant Anna to offer this solace.

Even Bergman at his most brilliant and despairing, never made a movie like this. Its setting is the most exquisitely furnished and adorned home, yet everything feels untouched, unloved. It's stifling and claustrophobic. The physical beauty of the surroundings are as empty as the hearts of Karin and Maria - both of whom express hatred for each other. Even when they briefly reconcile, it is short-lived.

The pain, the savagery of the cancer ripping the insides of Agnes apart is unrelenting. Bergman lavishes his camera over every detail, the slow movements of Agnes, the rigour she must employ to do the simplest of things like reaching for a glass of water, walking to a window to look at the rays of sun, sitting at a desk to write her memoirs, every stroke of the pen sending jolts of pain into her body and then, in words on the page, describing the pain as well.

Sven Nykvist's cinematography and longtime collaboration with Bergman reaches a pinnacle that could never be matched. We never see outside the windows, only the natural light pouring through them upon the beautiful, but cold and stately physical interior consume our perspective. Worst of all, when the lens attempts to caress the faces of its characters, especially Karin and Maria, all we get is the pain, hatred and regret, ozing from their pores of skin, which we can see in vivid detail.

Some movies are just inextricably linked to your being. Cries and Whispers is such a picture for me. I first saw it at a very young age with my mother. Her sister and my beloved aunt, had experienced a similar death from cancer. The pain we both felt was acute and yet, I remember my mother being affected, not just viscerally, but by Bergman's artistry and the sheer genius of the acting. I lived with the film through repeated viewings over the course of 40+ years. My most recent viewings came during my mother's year-long struggle with stomach cancer and in the weeks after her pain-wracked final weeks and, ultimately, death, I had to see the film even more.

It touches and reminds you of life's fragility and ultimately, the importance of love and forgiveness. In the movie's final moments, we hear a diary entry from Agnes as Bergman takes us out of the dank, sarcophagus-like atmosphere of the blood-red interiors and upon the sumptuous, rolling green lawns of the estate. All three sisters, dressed in white and carrying frilly parasols, gently walk the grounds with the loyal Anna accompanying them. They rush to an old swing, so special in their childhood. They take seats as Anna swings them back and forth. The final words of the film (in a heartfelt homage to Eugene O'Neill's immortal play of familial suffering, acrimony and grief, Long Day's Journey Into Night) have Agnes revealing the following:

"All my aches and pains were gone. The people I am most fond of in all the world were with me. I could hear their chatting around me. I could feel the presence of their bodies, the warmth of their hands. I wanted to hold the moment fast and thought, "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."

We sit, in stunned silence, tears pouring from our eyes, our thoughts turning to all those we've loved and continue to love and we are, ourselves, profoundly grateful for everything in life, which has indeed given us so much - and especially, Ingmar Bergman's hallowed gift us, Cries and Whispers.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5 Stars

Cries and Whispers is available on Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection. It features a wealth of glories for us to be grateful for, including a 2K digital restoration, an introduction by Bergman, shot in 2001, an all-new interview with Harriet Andersson, conducted by Peter Cowie, a video essay by filmmaker :: kogonada, behind-the-scenes footage with Cowie's commentary, a one-hour-long documentary from 2000 entitled Ingmar Bergman: Reflections on Life, Death, and Love with Erland Josephson (2000), exquisite new translation of the dialogue in English for the subtitles, an optional English-dubbed soundtrack (which helps those who don't speak Swedish to watch repeatedly and concentrate on the visual, an essay by film scholar Emma Wilson in the accompanying booklet and a stunning new cover design by by Sarah Habibi ace Criterion artist Sarah Habibi.

SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic Ingmar Bergman Gets The Criterion Touch

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) ****
dir. Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Eva Dahlbeck, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ulla Jacobson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Harriet Andersson, Margit Cariqvist

Review By Greg Klymkiw

“A romantic comedy by Ingmar Bergman”

So proclaim the opening titles announcing the great artist’s authorship of the magnificent movie, Smiles of a Summer Night. For those who know the Master for his trilogy of despair and agnosticism (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence) or his wrenching portrayal of cancer amidst the most harrowing of sibling rivalries in screen history (Cries and Whispers) or the strange autobiography-dolloped, borderline Grand Guignol Grimm-like fairytale and Strindbergian domestic drama Fanny and Alexander, the notion of a romantic comedy by Ingmar Bergman might well strike some as an oxymoron.

It makes perfect sense, though. Bergman’s picture might not seem like the bauble usually associated with the genre of romantic comedy, but it blends all the requisite tropes of the form and does so with a haunting melancholy that places it squarely at the top of the heap. While an early work from Bergman, it displays the assuredness, skill, artistry, sensitivity and poetry of a Master. It is a true delight that is as funny, frothy and entertaining as it is deeply and profoundly moving. In fact, my recent screenings of the picture on the delicious new Criterion Collection Blu-ray release might force my hand to elevate the movie to my personal Bergman favourite.

First and foremost, it presents Bergman’s unflagging talent for creating complex and compelling characters of the female persuasion. His touch for this rivalled, if not exceeded that of such distinguished fellows as Carl Dreyer (Passion of Joan of Arc) and Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story). Against the backdrop of early 20th century Sweden, a man’s world – as it were – we see a delightful tale unfold in which the women have the clear upper hand in their brilliant manipulations of all the dull-witted gentlemen, especially in matters of the heart (and, if truth be told, mind).

Bergman serves up a delicious stew of characters – all involved in various infidelities, yet looking for the one true love to infuse their lives with exclusive devotion. Fredrik Egerman (a shockingly funny Gunnar Bjornstrand) is a dull, middle aged, meticulously manicured lawyer who is married to the pert, nineteen-year-old sex kitten Anne (Ulla Jacobsson). He seems to have it all – except his new near-child bride who is still a virgin. The marriage has not been consummated due to Anne requiring some easing-in time. Fredrik waits ever-so patiently to dip his needy Nordic wick into his comely wifelet's burgeoning fleur de volets humide de la viande.

Complicating matters is the presence of his dour son Henrik (Bjorn Bjelvenstam), fresh from the seminary and on the verge of taking his oath of chastity. Henrik is constantly the target of the household’s sexy maid Petra (Harriet Andersson) who seeks to corrupt his aching appendage. At the same time, the son who clings to his virtue is madly in love with his Dad’s young bride. Henrik is torn between carnal lust, true love and devotion to God. Dad, of course, can see the attraction between his son and wife and knows he must act fast to make Anne all his before Sonny Jim manages to slide in his Swedish schwance and burst the hymen he longs to perforate.

Fredrik enlists the services of his former lover, the staggeringly gorgeous and popular stage actress Desiree Armfelt (the uber-radiant Eva Dahlbeck) to assist him with deflowering his bride. Desiree has always had a soft spot for Fredrik and agrees to take the mission, but is armed with a secret plan to get back her beloved Fredrik.

To further complicate matters, Desiree is having an ongoing dalliance with the married military man Carl-Magnus Malcolm (Jari Kulle). Malcolm’s wife Charlotte (Margit Carlqvist) is aware of her hubby’s infidelities – even engaging in open discussions with him about them. She wants her incorrigible hubby exclusively to herself and teams up with Desiree to make this a reality. Two scorned women are a veritable army of love.

The rest of the comedy takes place on the estate of Desiree’s mother Mrs. Armfeldt (Naima Wilfstrand) who agrees to set the stage for a magnificent coup de l’amour. Fredrik, his wife and son, Carl-Magnus and Charlotte and even the Egerman housemistress Petra are all invited for a weekend frolic on the grounds of the majestic sun-dappled Armfeldt manor in the country.

Here, the magic of love must, during a summer night, work overtime to bring the right combinations together. According to the Armfeldt groom Frid (Ake Fridell), the summer night is endowed with three smiles. The first is when young lovers open their hearts and loins – this, is when true love occurs. The second smile is reserved for jesters and fools – when love strikes those unable to truly experience love – where the mask of seeming mirth and/or ignorance provides a solace that is fleeting, ephemeral and ultimately intangible. As the dawn begins to peek from the out of the horizon, the final smile of night is reserved for the rest – the sad and dejected, the sleepless, the lost souls, the frightened and the lonely.

This is the love that the majority of humanity must settle for.

And this is the Bergman we’ve come to know and love – a man who investigates humanity with an eye of unwavering truth, melancholy and raw emotion.

Smiles of a Summer Night is an astonishingly universal work and has as much relevance to the present, and no doubt the future, as it did upon first release. It wasn’t the first romantic comedy Bergman made – he’d dabbled in it a few times prior to 1955, but those works, while modestly entertaining, are slight in terms of their ambition and I suspect work less successfully because of their contemporary settings.

The turn of the 19th to 20th century seems an ideal context to present a tale for all times. I will always recall Norman Jewison discussing his use of the diaphanous, near Ancient-Roman costuming of the female characters in Rollerball in order to present his sci-fi future in a futuristic world that would not seem dated. And Damn, Uncle Norman succeeded in spite of the male characters’ 70s sideburns – because of this introduction of elements of the past. The past makes all that is old new again.

There, I’ve finally done it. I’ve mentioned Rollerball in a review of an Ingmar Bergman movie. But bear with me – it makes sense. I’ve often found that rooting about in the past (or elements of it) allowed for an excellent looking glass into our own time and, by extension, the future. With Smiles of a Summer Night, Bergman’s use of an earlier age is what contributes to his ability to oddly contemporize, if not outright universalize this comic tale of love, infidelity and the power of female sexuality.

It is, of course, the wits and wiles of Woman that Bergman places his faith and trust. It is Desiree who notes that men “never know what’s best for them” and how women must “set them on the right track”. What, however, is the right track? Since pure, unbridled love – according to Bergman – can only be celebrated by the very few, then it stands to reason that the rest are the deluded, the pawns of the summer night and the smiles of Heaven, or, if you will, fate. This is what has the final word over all who populate the Earth – that power which can never truly be wrested away from the force of nature itself.

Bergman is, however, a formidable force of nature, of art, of the magic of cinema. His deft handling of this gorgeous, moving and funny romantic comedy is exquisite. Often, Bergman will settle his camera on a lovely eye-level medium composition – one that rivals and ultimately bests Howard Hawks, the master of 20th century romantic comedy himself.

A sequence that is perhaps the single greatest example of the genre in terms of writing and staging involves Fredrik, Desiree and Carl-Magnus – wherein our unlikely romantic hero, the dullard man of law declares, “A gentleman doesn’t face his rival deprived of his trousers.” Here, Bergman presents a long series of magnificent frames with very few cuts and where the actors deliver rapid-fire verbal exchanges within a fixed point of perspective. Upon the unexpected arrival of Carl-Magnus who has a mere 20-hour leave from military duty (6 hours for travel to and from, 9 hours with his mistress and 5 hours with his wife), a terrified Fredrik opines to Desiree: “Perhaps I could hide.” Her response: “We are not on a stage, dearest Fredrik.” In reality, it is not a stage of the theatre, but it is certainly a stage of life wrought by the Master that is Ingmar Bergman.

Fredrik sums it all up: “But this is still a damned farce”.

And so it is – a farce a la Bergman.

The sequence features several lengthy two-handers and three-handers – often lasting a full two minutes or longer where there are no cuts. In spite of this, the screen is awash in action and movement – pure cinematic expression.

Not only is Smiles of a Summer Night a perfect example of Bergman’s mastery of cinematic language from the perspective of camera but also his screenplay is complete and utter perfection as he juggles and finally fits together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is love. A great sequence involves our near-child bride Anne as she restlessly moves from room to room in Fredrik’s home – desperately searching for something to do and meeting both resistance and failure to make something, anything out of her daily existence until finally, sadly and with profound humanity, she settles in a room with her beloved budgies – beautiful, delicate, twittering creatures that, under her gaze, continue to live and breathe inside a cage. What might have been heavy handed symbolism in the hands of virtually every screenwriter or director is rendered fresh and moving in the hands, pen and eyes of Bergman.

Smiles of a Summer Night might well be the greatest of all romantic comedies – a pinnacle ascended at the half-century mark of cinema’s history and one that has never and will likely never be reached again.

At the halfway point of this truly majestic work, Desiree’s mother, invalided in her bed, but replete with all the experience that life has offered and that she has taken willingly, openly and greedily, looks to her daughter from a heartbreakingly, breathtakingly gorgeous long shot and says – to both her daughter’s POV and, by extension to us and the world:

“I am tired of people, but it doesn’t stop me from loving them.”

Bergman has delivered perfection.

He has delivered love the way only the medium of cinema can.

He loves his characters, he loves humanity and he loves us.

This is what greatness is.

This is art.

"Smiles of a Summer Night" is available on Blu-ray via the Criterion Collection in a gorgeous high definition transfer with a fine selection of extra features.

SUMMER INTERLUDE - Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw - Criterion CollectionBlu-Ray

Ingmar Bergman's passionate, heartbreaking tale of young love is quiet and delicate. Beneath the calm and warmth of a gentle summer, a heart waits to be broken while another turns to stone.

Summer Interlude (1951) ****
dir. Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin, Georg Funkquist

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"He was very fond of me and he was such a gentle boy. We used to go out together, walking . . . like the way they do in the country. . . O, the day I heard that, that he was dead!"
-Greta, The Dead by James Joyce

"Isn't that what love is, using people? Maybe that's what hate is--not being able to use people."
-Catherine, Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams

Sprinkled amidst the ups and downs of life, we encounter distinct periods of time that place the forward movements of our existence on pause. These interludes feel distinct from everything on either side of their beginning and end. They're often pleasant, relaxed or quietly pensive - allowing for reflection upon what has transpired and and consideration of what's to come. This is not to say the interludes are without actions which place the normal course of events in a sort of holding pattern, yet are in and of themselves representative of movements ever-advancing.

The same can apply even to interludes within the context of live performances of music, theatre or even in the early days of television when used as placeholders between regular programming during technical glitches or when there simply was nothing else to broadcast. That said, the events within the interlude are, more often than not, marked by actions decidedly different from what feels like the normal course of events. They're a transition period that allows growth (or stunting) to occur. They appear in individual lives as well as collective movements in world history; from the all-encompassing down to micro-and-macroscopic) progressions.

As a film, Summer Interlude is a sort of transitional moment in the career of Ingmar Bergman, perhaps the most influential filmmaker in all of film history. Bergman was 33-years-old when the film was released (the same year, amusingly, as Christ's crucifixion and, more importantly His resurrection). Bergman had already been working in cinema as a screenwriter (a damn fine one, at that) and had directed a few "gun for hire" items. This film - itself a story of one woman's interlude in her early years - feels like the first movie that's pure Bergman: the mad, obsessive, probing and deeply personal film artist who, more than any other, placed us so deep into the lives, thoughts, dreams and emotions of any number of now-immortal screen characters.

Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) and Henrik (Birger Malmsten) are two characters who probably deserve to take a place amidst that pantheon of indelible creatures Bergman has etched over his decades of making great cinema. If they take a less lofty spot than some, it's only because the Maestro had so many more years of life experience and artistry ahead of him. Marie is probably the one character closest in age to Bergman at the time. She's 28 and a prima ballerina with the Stockholm Company. Even at this young age, she's terrified of getting older and uncertain about what the future will indeed hold for her. These are clearly doubts Bergman would have understood, if not felt (in obviously different ways) himself.

He no doubt would have also had some experience with (and thoughts about) a character like Marie who shuts herself down emotionally to concentrate (at least seemingly) on her art. Her icy demeanour especially extends to the man who loves her (a journalist played by Alf Kjellin) and inspires a mounting desperation within him to be even more intensely insistent and demanding with respect to their relationship.

Finally, though, what really plagues Marie is an interlude from her past. As a teenager and burgeoning ballerina, she spent a warm summer in a rural area outside of the city. In a handful of extended flashbacks, rendered through a diary written by the shy, frail, teenage boy who loved her deeply during those long-ago days of idyllic summer frolics, Bergman renders a deeply romantic and ultimately tragic love story.

Overall though, Summer Interlude is a love triangle in duplicate. In the present, the triangle involves Marie, the journalist and her sudden reminiscence of the past - before she closed herself off completely to passion. In the flashbacks, the triangle is between Marie, the sweet Henrik and Marie's devotion to her career as a dancer. Though Bergman roots this in the world of an artist, it's certainly universal to anyone who has devoted themselves to their calling to the extent where "normal" human relations are stunted.

There is, too, a long tradition of telling stories - mostly from male artists - about women who feel responsible for decimating the hearts of their lovers in pursuit of their goals, dreams and talents. Bergman, however, takes his place here along with Carl Dreyer, James Joyce, Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and (to a certain extent) his chief influence August Strindberg as an artist who is sensitive to the demands patriarchy places upon women to the extent that the female characters, and Marie in particular, are fraught with feelings of guilt surrounding their choice of freedom over traditional romantic roles - so much so that they seal their emotions deep within them.

Summer Interlude is replete with so many moments of visual beauty and emotional tenderness that it would be difficult to imagine an audience not being deeply moved by both the love story in flashback and the one which occurs in the present tense. And of course, it wouldn't be Bergman without a dollop or two of creepiness - best exemplified by Marie's loathsome Uncle (brilliantly etched by the almost reptilian Georg Funkquist).

It's what I always loved about Bergman. Just when things threaten to get too emotionally tender or even humanistically harrowing, he digs into his back pocket and tosses in some glob of grotesquerie. Uncle Georg is Summer Interlude's equivalent to Ingrid Thulin masturbating and mutilating her genitals in Bergman's Cries and Whispers. Uncle George is a bit tame compared to that, but all Bergman needed was a little time.

And some interludes.

"Summer Interlude" is available on an astonishingly gorgeous Blu-Ray from the visionary Criterion Collection. Replete with a new digital restoration, an uncompressed monaural soundtrack (my favourite!!!), a new English subtitle translation and an essay by Peter Cowie, this is definitely a disc any self-respecting Bergman worshipper will NOT be without."