Friday night I watched Ingmar Bergman's Silence, a 1963 film about two sisters staying in a fictional country that may be moving toward civil war. So might they. The older sister, played by Ingrid Thulin, is a sickly translator and intellectual. The younger, played by Gunnel Lindblom, has a young son and is easily bored. In closed spaces their issues boil over.
There's more sex and nudity than I was prepared for based on the other Bergman works I've seen. I was going to say that Lindblom has a nice set of mams, and maybe she did, but it turns out Bergman used a body double for her character. The 1963 theatrical trailer plays up this aspect, which maybe was all they could do. But saying this movie is all SEX SEX SEX is no more true to it than saying that Bergman on the whole is just a miserable Nordic depressive. What this is actually is a stark psychological drama in a weird landscape.
The next night I went out to see a Spanish language play presented on a black box stage in the Elmwood neighborhood. It's about a wealthy woman—or at least one who remembers being wealthy—learning to appreciate her maid (played by a man.)
It was a very different work in a different medium. Also the play was an all ages affair, wit lots of kids in the audience. Still, in some ways they were covering similar ground.
There's more sex and nudity than I was prepared for based on the other Bergman works I've seen. I was going to say that Lindblom has a nice set of mams, and maybe she did, but it turns out Bergman used a body double for her character. The 1963 theatrical trailer plays up this aspect, which maybe was all they could do. But saying this movie is all SEX SEX SEX is no more true to it than saying that Bergman on the whole is just a miserable Nordic depressive. What this is actually is a stark psychological drama in a weird landscape.
The next night I went out to see a Spanish language play presented on a black box stage in the Elmwood neighborhood. It's about a wealthy woman—or at least one who remembers being wealthy—learning to appreciate her maid (played by a man.)
It was a very different work in a different medium. Also the play was an all ages affair, wit lots of kids in the audience. Still, in some ways they were covering similar ground.
2 comments:
Going to see foreign films was a pretty cool way to spend an evening when I was a young adult. Among the few people I knew at the time who also enjoyed the challenge of watching movies by Fellini, Bunuel, Truffaut, and Bergman (and others) the best part was going to a cafe afterwards so we could discuss what we'd thought about the one we'd just seen. While Bergman was always good for major philosophical discussions I only really remember a couple of them now - the very famous Seventh Seal and the desperately sad, for me, The Virgin Spring. This one I don't remember having seen even now that I've read your description. He was fond of weird stark landscapes as a background for his intensely profound studies of his characters. The Silence sounds very typical of his life's work.
The play you saw sounds interesting, although I doubt there were many children in the audience of the Bergman film. Was it presented in Spanish? Have you picked up some of the language?
Godard and Kurosawa were pretty active at the time as well. An exciting time for film, no doubt about it. I do remember The Seventh Seal, which I watched with you. Persona, which I saw in college, was also quite good. The Virgin Spring I haven't seen. I remember reading that Last House on the Left was kind of an unofficial remake. Guessing Bergman takes a different approach.
The Silence was definitely geared toward adults, even though one of the main characters was a little boy.
I have partial facility in Spanish. Sadly understanding what I hear is my weak point. Which is why it was good there were supertitles, projected onto a screen by the stage.
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