The order of mass is methodically performed before a dwindling congregation: a school teacher, Marta (Ingrid Thulin), a troubled parishioner, Jonas Persson (Max von Sydow) and Jonas’ wife, Karin (Gunnel Lindblom). But the ritual no longer holds any significance for its messenger, pastor Tomas (Gunnar Bjornstrand), who has a crisis of faith. Note several framed […]
Four people emerge from the austere horizon, heading for the shore of a seemingly desolate island: a successful writer, David (Gunnar Bjornstrand), his adolescent son, Minus (Lars Passgard), his fragile daughter, Karin (Harriet Andersson), and Karin’s husband, Martin (Max von Sydow). Surrounded by her family, Karin is brought to the remote island in order to […]
In the darkness of a breaking dawn, a lascivious, unmarried, expectant woman named Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom) dispassionately performs her morning ritual: preparing a fire on the stove, opening the roof door in order to allow the daylight to stream in, invoking the Norse god Odin in an envious and vengeful plea. In another room, the […]
Wild Strawberries captures the thoughtful and compassionate side of Ingmar Bergman rarely seen in his films. It is the story of an aging man’s introspective journey on the meaning of his life, and inevitability of death. Professor Isak Borg (Victor Sjostrom) is compiling his memoirs in preparation for an honorary degree that he is to […]
The Sacrifice is Andrei Tarkovsky’s final, visually intoxicating and profoundly spiritual masterpiece about the end of the world. The film’s initial image sets the tone for Tarkovsky’s deeply personal statement on humanity’s self-destruction. There is a close-up of a painting depicting an offering (to the haunting, threnodic oratorio of Johann Sebastian Bach). The camera then […]