Customer Reviews

Through a Glass Darkly [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Through a Glass, Darkly" is Ingmar Bergman's pensive chronicle of a young woman's descent into the maelstrom of schizophrenia. This four character study is set on a secluded island off the coast of Sweden, where Karin (Harriet Andersson), upon having just been released from a mental hospital, is brought by her husband, Martin (Max von Sydow). They are joined there by her father, David (Gunnar Bjornstrand), a novelist, and her brother, Minus (Lars Passgard). Karin has reached a pivotal juncture in her life, facing the uncertainties inherent in the nature of her illness. Doctors have advised Martin that she is occupying a middle ground between two worlds, and that the next few days may be crucial in determining the outcome. Will she emerge in the light, or succumb to the darkness of the voices that beckon her from within. Through Bergman's eyes we observe the effects of Karin's situation on each of her loved ones, and how differently each one of them strive to cope with and understand her elusive affliction. This is one of Bergman's finest works, the first of his "Faith" trilogy (followed by "Winter Light" and "The Silence"). "Through a Glass, Darkly" is an absorbing, evocative, and sometimes intense drama that should not be missed. An Oscar winner for Best Foreigh Film of 1961, it firmly establishes Ingmar Bergman as one of Cinema's greatest directors.

Emotionally wrenching mid-period Bergman is also beautifully shot and acted, especially by Harriet Andersson and Max Von Sydow. One of the more accessible of Bergman's movies, should be seen by every film buff.

Watched this one the day after I watched George Romero's latest zombie gore-fest, `Land of the Dead.' There's no contest which is the most horrifying - THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, hands down. Don't get me wrong. `Land of the Dead' is a good, smart, entertaining movie, but Romero's flesh foraging stenchers can't begin to approach the emotional weight director Ingmar Bergman throws at you.

The plot is gossamer thin and its outline is brief. Novelist papa (Gunnar Björnstrand) is back, briefly, from overseas. His daughter (Harriet Andersson) is back from a mental institution, enjoying a brittle spell of sanity. Her husband (Max von Sydow) is devoted and doting. Her brother (Lars Passgård) is in many ways her best friend and one true confidante. As is true with most Bergman movies, not a lot happens Out There - it the subtle shifting of characters and relationships, the stuff happening In Here (tapping head and heart) that count.

It helps that Andersson is electrifying in the lead role, while the rest of the cast ably keeps pace with her. The pivot point in this movie is a terrible secret that's revealed, and the effect it has on the family. That's the horrifying stuff, the point when we feel Andersson pulling away as she attempts to process what she's learned. Heartbreaking stuff.

It's always tempting to write about what a movie means - stuff you crib off on-disc special features, commentary tracks, or a book or magazine article - but that fails with Bergman. It means what the viewer - you - decides it means. It doesn't seem right to artificially narrow a reader's focus by saying THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY is, say, a religious allegory. Watch it - I'm serious, WATCH IT - and decide for yourself. A masterwork like this shouldn't be constrained by some stranger's interpretation.

Confession - I'm an action-movie fan. `Land of the Dead' is a lot more my speed than THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY. For some reason I can't account for I drag my heels when invited to watch a Bergman film - too depressing, too slow, too cerebral, distracting subtitles, what have you. I've gone away from every one of his movies I've seen stunned by their beauty and insight. This one is no exception. Highest recommendation.

Well, we don't see darkly through a glass, and Bergman explains in his "Introductions" that during the ancient times, there were no glass, the mirrors were made of metal, bronze, for instance and while looking through the metal mirror, the face and the background appear darker than in reality. Does it mean that when we look inside ourselves like in the mirror, we appear darker and more sinister than we are? Or the other way around?

"Through a Glass Darkly" is a typically great Bergman's film - four people arrive to an isolated island to spend a few days together, a young woman, her husband, father, and brother. They seem to love one another and are perfectly happy and comfortable in the beginning. It does not last long - not in the Bergman's world. Harriet Anderson was amazing as Karin, a mentally sick young woman, who was just released from the hospital but I believe three other actors playing Father (Gunnar Bjornstrand), Husband (Max von Sydow), and Brother (Lars Passgård) were as good as she was. The Father was especially interesting - he was a reason Karin became ill on the first place and his diary sent her to the total mental breakdown. As with "Persona" and "Autumn Sonata", Bergman is asking again how far is an Artist willing to go for his Art? Here, Father, the writer wants to be a cool and remote observer of his daughter's mental tragedy as a study for his future work. There is a hope, though, in the end. Not for Karin - it is too late for her - but for her confused young brother who is also fighting for his sanity and desperately needs his father's love and understanding. His last words - "Daddy talked to me" - give this bleak and tragic story the hope that his life could be different. Or maybe not...

I was a little bored with what seemed the extraneous events of the beginning, but it turned out they were important (I always feel you should watch a Bergman film backwards, that way the beginning won't seem pointless). I loved this movie, not that I'm such a fan of mental illness. I thought it was perfectly written, directed, acted and crowded with "meaning." I won't go into the plot (all the other reviews have pretty well divulged that to a fare thee well), but I highly recommend it, even if you don't like Bergman. This one isn't slow (once it gets started). Sydow had a tendancy to play with his glasses toward the end which was distracting, and to take them on and off, breaking the illusion that he needed glasses. Was this deliberate? A subtlety that was lost on me. In this flick, lots of things happen. I watched "The Silence" last night. Now THAT was a boring movie! I'm waiting for the 3rd one from Netflix.

In the middle of the Swedish summer, four persons: Harriet Anderson -who suffers of severe schzophrenia at very advanced level-, his brother, husband and father the gradual but progressive increase of the inner tensions will ascend to reach the final eruption.
Harriet is constntly attacked by awful visions (and we have once more the superb artistic power of Ingmar Bergman) in which she swears she is capable to see God and being the witeness of the fatal warnings.
This ancient coinflct around the faith, the silence of God and the complex and sometimes almost imposible communication process between the human beings is explored with merciless realism.
So in this state of things the lineal vision seems to suggest us she is in the last frontier of the insanity; in this XX Century it looks less tha ridiculous to be possesed and being capable to experiment revelations from the outer world.
But Bergman discretely -through a glass darkly- woul seem to reflect in silent voice: and what about the others? Joan of Arc for instance.
The final solution will be shown at the end of the movie but meanwhile, we have a scalpelian gaze of the human nature: his abominable, obsessed and selfish father, who lived a similar hell with the same illness of his wife years before.
He writes that being irreversible the progressive disintegration of his daughter he will watching her behavior till the last breath of life comes to her.
He will be faced by his son on law overseas and required and even censured by his incapacity to establish a sane relationship. His muse as frustrated writer seems to be the principal obstacle according him.
But the hard agreement in the last dialogue with his own son about God's existence, trying to establish the love as God or a prrof about the existence, or the final consequence, is admirably expressed with the visible desperation.
In the other hand the awful nightmares that invade the mind of Harriet are shown with eloquent brightness several times along the picture.
This is a complex, superb, disturbing but rewarding movie.
One of my favorite films of Ingmar Bergman that won a deserved AcademyAward as Best Foreign Film.

The story of this film revolves around 4 people - Karin, who suffers from schizophrenia, Martin, Karin's husband, a doctor who watches helplessly as she slips deeper into the illness, David, Karin's father, an author who watches with a creeping sense of detachment to which he is horrified of and Minus, a young 17 year old boy with his life ahead of him yet he feels neglected.

When we first see the four arrive, Karin in particular, seems fresh and bubbly, you would hardly notice anything at all. But as the film progresses you see her moods begin to darken as she progressively moves from happy to sad to creepy within quick succession. The crucial point in the film is when Karin notices that her father has been keeping a diary of her mental disintegration for his own private use as he may " use her " as an idea for a novel he is thinking of writing in future.

Feeling as though she can't trust her father, and within time, her feelings for her husband slowly dwindle. The only person she can trust is poor Minus, her brother. Minus doesn't know what to do or even know how to handle Karin's visions and the voices that she hears. She is convinced that God is on the other side of the wall and that he will appear soon. This genuinely unsettles Minus and, under instructions leaves, but not without Karin yelling for the way he tiptoes out. He goes out the door for a few minutes and when he comes back to open the door, she is there in front of him and her mood has changed as if the bizarre happenings of two minutes ago had never happened.

What is done very well is that what Karin says she sees, the audience can not see at all but you hear slight whispers faintly during one scene which makes this film all the more believeable. Also point of note is the house they live in, which looks very rundown, very shabby......perhaps it was not such a good idea to come to the house as it gives hints as to what might have happened in the past especially for someone whose mental state is in such a fragile state of affairs.

I won't give too much more away, as I may have spoiled the movie for you but in the notes that Bergman wrote himself, he says that he is uneasy watching this film and that there were a lot of mistakes made and that the film was not "real" but played "by a trickster." He makes the point that the film took on a musical quality and that the person who acted in Karin was the only one who hit the notes right. He does state though that the whole acting team played well but it was the fault of him and his crew that let it down in some ways. While I think he's being too harsh on himself, I can emphathize/sympathize with the way he feels, especially given the background he gives on the making of this film which I will leave you to read over. I think it was an extract of his autobiography or something, must check that out.

Overall, I think the film is a powerful movie, one that tries to show the intensity of emotions, even in a state of detachment and also a sort of frailty not only in mental capacity in how it can dissolve but also of human understanding, love, relationships and of religion. It may not be the most uplifting movie you'll ever see but it is a movie nonetheless that in some way, may outline harsh lessons in life.

This is an amazing film, of a beautiful woman sliding back into mental illness. No matter what your perspective on it - that she is struggling with God, that it is neuro-biological hence inevitable, or that she is performing a function within her family - the film is full of subtle interconnections, questions without answers, and absolutely first rate acting. Harriet Andersson, the tormented young woman, is completely believable. Her father, a monstrously ambitious minor writer, wants to use her ordeal to elevate his career. Her husband, von Sydow, is curiously passive and ineffectual, oblivious to the incestuous flirtation that is developing between the woman and her younger brother.

The plot is simple, just the characters interacting in daily life in a vacation colony. Though recently released from a mental institution, the woman immediately begins to deteriorate, talking to people in the wall and a separate self that she calls merely "she", seeking a God she eventually recognizes as a spider. Her sensitive brother, awakening to life and his sexuality, wants to help her and reaches out as the only person with whom she seems able to communicate. When she learns that her father wants to "use her", the die is cast and she completely falls apart - apparently as a gift for him. The only thing that her husband can do is inject her with a powerful tranquilizer, grieving for her as a "tormented animal". The son is left alone and in danger.

In my opinion, her descent is all of a piece with the mundane details that emerge in the film. I think it is the most powerful evocation of mental illness that has ever been accomplished in film. When it was over, I felt almost frightened to return to my life, so swept up I was in the momentum of her visions.

Recommended for those who want to explore the darkest corners of the psyche. It is Bergman at his absolute best.

Somehow I managed to miss this Bergman film when it was first released in the U.S. --in a way that may be a plus in terms of reviewing. I had a fairly good understanding of the director's artistic development, so I could view this contribution with a little hindsight. THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY is one of Bergman's earlier works (in contrast to AUTUMN SONATA with Ingrid Bergman, and FANNY & ALEXANDER, Ingmar Bergman's most opulent production.)

I was interested to read that THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY was 1 of 3 "chamber plays." Another great Swedish artist, the playwright August Strindberg, first conceptualized this "chamber play" idea (1849-1912). Strindberg is considered by many to be the "Father of Modern Drama." He wrote a number of plays that he called "chamber plays" (including GHOST SONATA) that would be produced in his new "Intimate Theatre." Strindberg was the first of the playwrights in the West to employ cultural fusion in his work--for example, in DREAM PLAY the main character & scenario is based on Hinduism. Strindberg was also the first Western playwright to indicate that his plays be staged "in the round."

Another interesting parallel is that in Strindberg's play EASTER, the heroine is mentally ill. She hears messages through telegraph lines. This is similiar to the woman in GLASS DARKLY. There is a difference though. Strindberg's heroine goes through a sort of emotional purgatory, a catharsis that restores her to her normally gentle nature. Bergman's heroine wants to return to the hospital & be taken off her medication. She says that it is too difficult going back & forth between the worlds of sanity & insanity. Insanity is seen as the only alternative to suicide. Another difference is that Strindberg's heroine ultimately has a positive influence on her family; Bergman's heroine is growing increasingly destructive.

There is no doubt that Ingmar Bergman was highly influenced by Strindberg.

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY qualifies as both a chamber play & an example of intimate theatre because there are only 4 characters in the film as well as only 3 or 4 sets all at the same location. This gives the audience the sense of actually being present somewhere in the play--or at least surrounded by it.

The plot concerns a young married woman who has recently been released from a mental sanatorium. She is under the care of her own husband who is a psychiatrist--and this movie should stand as a warning not to mix the professional with the personal.

The husband is hopelessly entangled in his wife's illness & his own inner conflicts. The woman's father (a writer) and younger brother are also on the scene. They are no help either because the father has lost his wife to a similar mental condition (schizophrenia is clearly indicted), and he is totally burned out. The brother is even more screwed up sexually & emotionally. To top it all off, there is some sort of incestual relationship going on between the brother & sister.

At one point the father suggests that his son-in-law provide euthanasia to his daughter in order to prevent her suffering the same fate of his wife. The husband adamantly refuses to even discuss the question.

Obviously this is not the best environment for recovery from a serious mental disorder.

What is striking about the film is how devastating the terrors of schizophrenia can be. The actress is flawless in this portrayal.

The cinematography is gorgeously black & white.

As with many of Bergman's film, there is at least one scene in which a character impotently tries to supplicate a God who seems nowhere to be found in his own creation.

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY ends abruptly, but that's probably because it's the conclusion of just the first segment.

I'll need to view the others before commenting on the whole. Nonetheless, this movie can stand on it's own & I highly recommend it to all film buffs, and a must-see for Bergman fans.

Ingmar Bergman - Four Masterworks (Criterion Collection)
A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman - Criterion Collection (Through a Glass Darkly/Winter Light/The Silence)
The Ingmar Bergman Special Edition DVD Collection (Persona / Shame / Hour of the Wolf / The Passion of Anna / The Serpent's Egg)
Autumn Sonata - Criterion Collection
Fanny and Alexander (Special Edition Five-Disc Set) - Criterion Collection
Miss Julie and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)
Six Plays of Strindberg
Inferno / From an Occult Diary
August Strindberg: Five Major Plays, Vol. II

Ingmar Bergman's 1961 film SASOM I EN SPEGEL (Through a Glass Darkly) was the first of his "chamber films" of the early '60s. These form a trilogy, all of intimate plots involving a minimum of characters and concerned with the "silence of God", Man's burden of surviving in life on his own with no clear direction from above. They intensify even further the existential angst of the late '50s films (DET SJUNDE INSEGLET, JUNGFRUKALLAN) but introduce the interpersonal themes that were to preoccupy Bergman for the rest of his career.

As the film opens, we see four people coming in from a swim in the cold Baltic Sea. The novelist David (Gunnar Bjornstrand) has returned home after a sabbatical in a distant country, reuniting at their summer home with his son Minus (Lars Passgard), daughter Karin (Harriet Andersson) and her husband Martin (Max von Sydow). Karin has suffered from some time from schizophrenia, though she had regained lucidity to a degree. Four characters is all it takes. The plot is driven through Karin's illness, Minus' awkward budding manhood, and David's self-centeredness and uninterest in his family's plight. Though wracked by delusions, Karin ultimately provides a key insight about Man's place in the world.

The superb quality of Andersson's acting can be judged by how uncomfortably close to home it hits this viewer, who had a loved one suffering from schizophrenia. This was the first Bergman film where Sven Nykvist was principal cinematographer, and there's a certain purity to the shots, as if they were sculpted from marble, compared to his later work. All in all, this is a powerful effort, though my favourite of the chamber trilogy is NATTVARDSGASTERNA (Winter Light).

This Amazon listing describes a standalone DVD of the film. However, I'd recommend getting SASOM I EN SPEGEL as part of the Criterion Collection box of Bergman's chamber trilogy.