Licht im Winter

possibly my absolute favorite Bergman film. Gorgeous, the way a fresh blanket of snow on a frigidly cold winter night is.

Brutally bleak, "Winter Light" may be about losing religious faith, but I don't think you have to have a religious faith to identity with Gunnar Bjornstrand's character, the pastor of a small town. His "faith" is as much a will to live as anything else.

Bjornstrand and Ingrid Thulin are amazingly good, and Max von Sydow does more with a few subtle expressions, and very little dialog, than most any actor is capable of.

Not a film to watch in the dead of winter if you suffer from SAD, unless you're like me and get a perverse type of therapy from confronting the hopelessness head first.

"Winter Light" (Swedish, 1962): Just prepare yourself. Bergman is at his depressive best here. If you've ever lived in an environment that is perpetually cold, wet, and gray, you'll understand. If not, well, this film will illustrate it for you. A preacher, in serious depression himself, is losing his flock. His flock has rampant depression too. He tries to help, but it's useless. He starts looking for answers from them. No one has answers. Things happen. Nothing happens. It's the same old thing today, and tomorrow. This film requires patience. Expect no action. Even a scene change begins to seem like excitement – which is exactly what Bergman wanted for you. One scene, in which a major character "narrates" a letter she wrote to the preacher, is amazing. With a blank background, she stares into the lens of the camera, and talks "at" you – for pages. What a gutsy thing to do in a MOVING PICTURE. Avoid this film if you want more than thinking and feeling as results.

This is a captivating film, one of Bergman's most inward-looking and cold pieces.

The performances are terrific. Gunnar Bjornstrand is at his excellent best, Max von Syndow is predictably good. I would single out the women performers for particular praise in this film: Ingrid Thulin is outstanding as the spinster who cannot break the ice that encloses Bjornstrand's pastor. Gunnel Lindblom plays a small but superb part as the desperate wife of the suicidal von Syndow.

This is not plot and action stuff, nor is it any good for you if seeing depression in others makes you depressed. It is a microscope study of desperation and depression. It is a small canvas film – my personal preference is for Bergman's larger canvas work such as The Seventh Seal and especially Wild Strawberries. Of his darker, psychological work, again I would express a preference for Persona and also Through a Glass Darkly. But I'm comparing greatness with greatness – if you like Bergman's work this one's a must see.

"I think I have made just one picture that I really like, and that is Winter Light…Everything is exactly as I wanted to have it, in every second of this picture." – Ingmar Bergman

"Winter Light" concentrates around the middle-aged priest named Thomas (extraordinarilly played by Gunnar Björnstrand) of a small Swedish church and his spiritual and emotional struggles during the one winter afternoon.

Tomas founds himself as a non-believer. He realized that he actually became a priest because he was weak, anxious and neurotic and not because of his faith. As a young man, not knowing the REAL world and its TRUE nature, Tomas became a priest. His wife was everything to him, yes. She encouraged his "believes". With her, his believes (or self-deceptions) were stable, steady. After her death, they were shaken (so were his whole life and its purposes) because he encountered the "real world".

After his wife's death he met Marta, schoolteacher – simple and realistic woman (played by brilliant Ingrid Thulin). Marta is in love with him. But he is bored with her and avoids her. Reasons for that are not very clear to the viewer or Tomas himself. He feels isolated and detached from the rest of the world. All the meanings and purposes of his life suddenly disappeared. Whole his life was one big – LIE.

So, why is he avoiding Marta? She is the real representation of the ''real world'' since being an atheist. Marta is the symbol of his failure, she ''reminds'' him that he dedicated whole his life to – nothing.

This is not, however, a religious film. It's a lot more exploring the real human nature and its possible ''faults''. It raises some universal issues like: ''Am I doing good things because I am a good person (because I have a good character) or because I am afraid of the consequences (because I am weak, fearful)''?

"Winter Light" is also masterfully crafted movie with formal elements absolutely supporting (and adding to) the issues of the script. It is a very cold movie with no music (intentionally). Sven Nykvist, Bergman's cinematographer did excellent job with his contrasted black and white photography, focuses and mise-en-scene conjuring up the emotional isolation and distances between the characters.

With this one Bergman touches the inner soul like no one ever did on film. The movie is about depression, how to deal with your principal beliefs when you don't believe in them anymore, "God's escaping me..." We feel the priest running out of strenght and slowly fading away in his disbeliefs, he then finds a man who he can relate to (Due to the depression he has, as heard about the bomb which the Chinese are creating, they are learnt to hate) He kind of uses him to give himself the power to get on with his own life, he doesn't listen to the man, but he explains his own problems, due to this the man kills himself, it's now the task of the priest to tell his wife, and by this he finds himself again, feeling again what his role in this so cruel world is. "What's the meaning of life" he says, "we can only know if we fight against ourself and our inner soul which leads us to suicide" that's why we live. Everything fits together so perfect, it's almost like I was living the movie. The characters play excellent, the cold winter settings make part of the mood the film was made for, make you feel, and that's why this movie is so excellent. It's a not so easy one but once you understand what it tells you realise why this movie exceeds storytelling of today's crap we get to see in theatres. Few films are so true and realistic.

I haven't seen all of Bergman's films, but for now this is the masterpiece 10/10