Cast: Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman

Running time: 1 hr 21 mins

Genre: Drama/Foreign Film



CRITIQUE:


Aside from drab seashores and gloomy cloaked men playing chess, we seem to have forgotten what Ingmar Bergman was really best in cinema: his unrelenting, unforgiving use of close-ups. His later masterpiece Persona is crucially incomplete without them. To Bergman, the human face is the greatest subject of study. And this is exemplified here in his utterly bleak drama Winter Light, where the camera closes in to the actors’ faces, confronting them with unflinching attention with barely a director’s cut, and then strips away every layer of character reserve to bare something that is human and very raw. This story of a priest’s crisis of faith is told in a very minimalist style of cinematography; mostly static shots of church interiors and wintry exterior landscapes, but these settings are comparably insignificant to the panorama of emotions in display of the film’s human faces. The pastor, Tomas Ericsson’s expression transforms from solemnity to turmoil-ridden, a man suffering from religious doubt and existentialist riddle. His unreciprocated lover, the schoolteacher Marta, gives an onscreen confession so powerful that even without the words pouring out from her lips, we can discern the emotional anguish from this woman’s face. These two central characters are both exquisitely performed, culminating in a battle of self-esteem, as Tomas spews revulsion and rebuff whilst we witness Marta's painful deterioration.


VERDICT:

This is not a film to enjoy. This is Ingmar Bergman’s cinema-essay on faith, human existentialism and sorrow – big, bold issues told in a minimalist, unfussy style. Winter Light’s bleak atmosphere and religious freezing might put you in gloom, but this is undoubtedly powerful, moving cinema.




RATING: B+