The Virgin Spring

The Virgin Spring was part one of an epic triple-feature the other day. First was this one, sadly on an iPod Touch. Second was Rear Window from a DVD projected onto a full-size cinema screen. Third was Yojimbo in a theater from a 35 mm print. While the quality of the content started high and stayed there, the quality of the presentation only improved. Of the three, Bergman’s film is the most traumatic to the viewer. Hitchcock gives suspense as only he can do and Kurosawa presents the archetype of the samurai film, but Bergman wrestles with pain, suffering, and death – existence in darkness when God has promised light. Incidentally, Bergman later wrote that The Virgin Spring was pure Kurosawa and almost completely inspired by a Japanese style. This might not strike the viewer while watching The Virgin Spring, but in retrospect it makes sense.

There are the believers and the heathens in this film; Christianity and the occult. They coexist but one represses the other. This is a biblical parable, really, combining Cain and Abel with Jacob and Esau but this time as sisters. Jealousy and resentment reign between siblings, which leads to murder. Bergman is remarkably gracious to all his characters, including the sisters. The viewer sympathizes with both and is disgusted by both. The older sister, the one who worships a pagan deity, is defined by jealousy toward her younger, prettier sister who is the favorite of both parents. Clearly her feelings are at least natural if not justified. The younger sister is rather repulsive as a person until her safety is compromised by the older one, and she finds herself between two sex-starved forest men miles away from home.

Bergman’s view of the rapists is most worthy of note. Animals of the worst sort, criminals who stoop to the lowest of lows by raping and murdering a young and unprotected girl, Bergman nevertheless refuses viewers the pleasure of a simple condemnation even while depicting the act in all of its extreme horror and ugliness. As no character is morally perfect in the film, so also is no character destitute of humanity. Before, during, and after the rape the men are seen hesitating, self-loathing, and even regretting. Lost and confused, they do what their sin nature (as the film itself insists) impels them to do. Without the proper opportunity to live in a better world, it seems, they are enslaved to their own devices. But Bergman does not so simply excuse their evil. The older sister, after all, is from the other world, but she is an outcast within it. Mistreated though she is, she still belongs to a family with material possessions, a home, and a community. By staging and allowing the rape, she is complicit with the rapists, crossing class boundaries and illustrating the universal nature of evil. If anyone is “good” in this film, it is the boy who belongs to the forest men. He is powerless, however, to alter the course of events or speak the truth of what has happened. He is a mute; innocence silenced by evil.

The father’s revenge, repentance, and vow all come in quick succession and set him apart from more evil characters only on account of his ultimate submission. The Bergman character par excellence, he encounters God, encounters evil, and through the latter is forced to encounter God more fully than he had ever desired or intended. Unlike most Bergman characters, however, he receives a response from the Almighty. The response is one of hope, and it’s been criticized for heavy-handed symbolism; perhaps so, perhaps not (although accusing Bergman of too much symbolism seems tantamount to accusing Hitchcock of too much suspense or Godard of too much playfulness). Bergman’s cinematic mode here and elsewhere is not transcendental but existentialist. His characters clash with God and wrestle with his apparent absence, but Bergman’s filmic style is securely grounded in his characters – their dilemmas, their struggles, etc. So when the virgin spring erupts, it is less a theophany (such that we find in the films of Kieslowski, for instance) and more inner, more subjective, the visible fruit of human hope even in death.

Winter Light

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a Bergman film. Went through a stage a year or more ago that included The Seventh Seal, The Silence, Wild Strawberries, Fanny & Alexander, and Cries & Whispers. Winter Light was supposedly Bergman’s favorite of all of his films. It’s dense, direct, and brief. But any longer and it would be too long.

The setting is a pastor, Tomas Ericsson, in a small town in very wintry Sweden. The pastor’s glory days in his parish have passed, due to his wife’s death chiefly. Since then the numbers in his church have diminished, and rumors have swirled about his relationship with a woman, Märta. The cold, icy setting of the film effectively reflects the mood of most of the characters, especially Tomas. The shots following the credits, accompanying Tomas’ recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, are a montage of the snowy outdoors, with dead or dormant trees and the absence of life. About eight people comprise the congregation. Two of them, a married couple, come to speak with Tomas following the service. The woman tells the pastor that her husband, who is unwilling to speak, is fearful of the news that China is experimenting with nuclear weapons. It soon is apparent that his fear is less of China and more of death in general. It seems more than coincidental that the woman is played by the protagonist of Bergman’s following film, The Silence, in a role that in many ways is the continuation of this character. Also, the husband is played by the knight who plays chess with Death in The Seventh Seal, already identifying him with that grave subject matter. The pastor’s attempt to help the man turns into a reverse-confessional booth, with Tomas coming clean that he, too, has no hope and cannot believe in God. Shortly thereafter, the husband kills himself. The rest of the film has Tomas wrestling with the thought that sent his parishioner to suicide.

Bergman, quite the agnostic believer (or believing agnostic), never seemed to tell anyone to believe or not to believe. Films such as this have him wrestling with the idea of God and the seeming incompatibility of existence with God. But Bergman no more lands on one side or the other than does Tomas. One scholar has interpreted the film’s end as Bergman’s hope that as long as there is still one person to minister to, there is hope. That seems quite wrongheaded. Granted, the last person is Märta, who for the first time begins to move beyond mere hostility toward belief in God and longs for some kind of truth. However, the crux of the story and the theme is Tomas. The hunchback sexton is the only character who has true faith. He not only attends services, comes early, and lights the candles, but he concerns himself with the most core matter of what faith entails. Whereas the church is covered in bloody crucifixes, obsessed with the physical pain of Jesus, the sexton points out that Jesus’ physical pain was intense, but very brief. The sexton, in his life, has likely experienced more pain than Christ did. The sexton states this matter-of-factly, with no sacrilege intended. As the sexton listed all that Christ endured, I waited, wondering if he would ever get the the real heart of the matter: Christ’s final doubt on the cross, His feeling that God, his Father, abandoned him. The sexton saved it for last because it is by far the most important fact of Christ’s suffering. This humble fool is likely what gives Tomas the push to go forward with the service, despite his strong doubts. Still, that Bergman gave the film’s last word to the sexton could lead one to hasty, simplistic conclusions. Bergman isn’t endorsing faith anymore than he is endorsing suicide. He seems rather to be illustrating the difficulty, the conflict in a person who realizes the ramifications of belief/unbelief in God. Early in the film, Tomas says that he is free (from belief), but as the film continues it is clear that suspending or rejecting belief in God is not always as freeing as one hopes it will be. He longs for a kind of freedom that seems not to exist. The sexton believes in God, thereby enslaving himself to that belief. Jonas rejected God and killed himself. The only character who does not actually seek freedom is the sexton. Interestingly, all he seeks is sleep. He reads the Bible to cure his insomnia.

Notes: All shots during services completely symmetrical – order, perfection. Very severe. When girl winces at wine, pastor furrows brow. Pastor talks about bliss, peace, and blessing, but appears utterly stoic. Montage of ritualistic, inanimate church imagery; shows monotony, emptiness of rituals. Tomas tells sexton same hymns for next time. Husband’s name is “Jonas Persson” – sort of a John Doe, everyman. Like Tomas, Jonas faces toward window and away from other people. Tomas says, “We must trust God,” but he appears troubled. Huge emaciated Jesus hanging on cross behind pastor in office. “What a ridiculous image” – pastor on crucifix. “God’s silence” is bothering him.Märta says, “God has never spoken because God doesn’t exist.” Skull & crossbones on wall of church. Märta “reads” letter staring straight at camera – no escape. She says Tomas was unable to pray for her. “I never believed in your faith…God & Jesus were always just vague notions.” Conscience/guilt has her looking at him. “If there is no God, would it really make any difference?” Life might make more sense, he thinks. Camera closes in on Tomas’ face, then, “God, why have you forsaken me?” as camera pulls back. As body is loaded into van, high, long shots – contrast with camera in rest of film – close-ups. Tomas rejects Märta’s love. Loved his wife – “When she died, I died.” Calls Märta an “ugly parody” of her. Still asks her to accompany him to Mrs. Persson’s. As they approach train crossing, Tomas: “It was my parents’ dream that I become a clergyman.” Sexton says maybe Christ’s pain wasn’t mainly physical – Gethsemane, Peter’s denial, lack of disciples’ understanding & obedience, Christ’s loneliness. Then, above all, God’s forsake. “In the moments before He died, Christ was seized by doubt…God’s silence.” Märta: “If only we had some truth to believe in. If only we could believe.” Camera cuts to Tomas, head in hands; decides to go through with service. Märta only one in attendance besides sexton, the hunchback of faith. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.” End.