Såsom i en spegel (1961)

a.k.a Through a Glass Darkly

90 min
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Drama

Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is...

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Dieguito

Bergman's movies are always very impressive! Pain, death and myths regarding the human condition..

9 years ago

The first in Ingmar Bergman's "God's silence" trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly presents us with a small cast of characters dealing with personal problems, and draws parallels between their relationships with each other and with an unfeeling God. Father/Creator/God are closely knit concepts, with the patriarch a distant man who pours everything into his writing, rather than his family. His daughter has a mental illness that fascinates him and of which he might be jealous, as it seems to put her in touch with the divine. Her husband is the atheist who tries to smother the visions with reason. And her kid brother, also a writer and thus perhaps a Christ figure, is the only one she can confide in, but his emotions are out of control as a result of parental neglect. His incestuous impulses are mirrored in the father, although Bergman never confirms a history of abuse, it's very much there, between the lines, and likely the source of his daughter's troubles. And yet, the ordeal of the film makes the father understand God better and gives him hope that He exists. Is this an allegory for the Old/New Testament paradigm shift? Bergman explores these ideas without ever betraying his characters, so it works on several levels, and the final answer is just one possibility. The next film, Winter Light, proposes the opposite.

a year ago