A través de un vidrio oscuro

Between 1957-1963, Ingmar Bergman directed seven films. In my mind, there has never been such an amazingly creative period for a director as the six years between Wild Strawberries and The Silence. Through a Glass Darkly stands out to me as not only the masterpiece of this era, but of Bergman's entire career. This film has such a distinct atmosphere, which conveys not only isolation and melancholy, but also dark, austere beauty. Every little piece of this film fits together like a glorious completed puzzle. The Bach playing over the opening credits. The cinematography, with long, meditative shots in glowing black and white. The performances turned in by Harriet Andersson, Gunner Bjornstrand, and Bergman regular Max von Sydow. Overall, I sense that Bergman's vision is so obviously being displayed on the screen, as if his soul is being laid bare. As a singular piece of art, it is just staggering to behold. I think that everyone has albums or films that they connect with certain periods in their life, that transcend the mundane and just touch you in a profound way. Through a Glass Darkly is one for me. A must see.

Well, we don't see darkly through a glass, and Bergman explains in his "Introductions" that during the ancient times, there were no glass, the mirrors were made of metal, bronze, for instance and while looking through the metal mirror, the face and the background appear darker than in reality. Does it mean that when we look inside ourselves like in the mirror, we appear darker and more sinister than we are? Or the other way around?

"Through a Glass Darkly" is a typically great Bergman's film - four people arrive to an isolated island to spend a few days together, a young woman, her husband, father, and brother. They seem to love one another and are perfectly happy and comfortable in the beginning. It does not last long - not in the Bergman's world. Harriet Anderson was amazing as Karin, a mentally sick young woman, who was just released from the hospital but I believe three other actors playing Father (Gunnar Bjornstrand), Husband (Max von Sydow), and Brother (Lars Passgård) were as good as she was. The Father was especially interesting - he was a reason Karin became ill on the first place and his diary sent her to the total mental breakdown. As with "Persona" and "Autumn Sonata", Bergman is asking again how far is an Artist willing to go for his Art? Here, Father, the writer wants to be a cool and remote observer of his daughter's mental tragedy as a study for his future work. There is a hope, though, in the end. Not for Karin - it is too late for her - but for her confused young brother who is also fighting for his sanity and desperately needs his father's love and understanding. His last words - "Daddy talked to me" - give this bleak and tragic story the hope that his life could be different. Or maybe not...

Her eyes could not deceive what her mind made her believe, though to others she's disturbed and increasingly perturbed, as a cocktail of delusion, creates confusion and illusion, and there's nothing they can do, except observe as she looks through.

There are outstanding performances and there are Harriet Andersson performances and there is a difference between the two, especially under the guidance of this director, as she takes you on the nightmare that Karin lives, the struggles she endures (and of those that surround her), as her world cascades through torment and torture that she can do very little about, and at the time nobody else could be of much help either.

Through a Glass Darkly marks one of the first collaborations between Bergman and his long time cinematographer Sven Nykvist (who passed away this last September). Nykvist shot films as varied as Lasse Hallestroms 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' to Woody Allen's 'Crimes and Misdemeanors.' Nykvist's touch is present throughout the film, a style that begins to become a part of Bergman's signature mise-en-scene.

Bergman's screenplay is transitional because of it's scarcity of saturation. Using a cast of only four and only one location, the family's country home on an island off the coast of Sweden. Karin (Harriet Andersson) is slowly going mad, her family (fiancée, father and brother) are trying to understand her and not send her away, trying to let her know that things may be alright as she descends into hysteria, talking to walls, waiting for god to come out of the closet.

The film is quite simply a masterpiece. A portrayal of descent into madness and the effect on others that feels more grounded in reality than even the best of films on madness (see: Shock Corridor – Samuel Fuller, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – Milos Foreman, or The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada – Tommy Lee Jones) Nykvist's mostly static camera gives the film a brooding sense of anticipation, lingering motionlessly, allowing the actors to move freely into deep frames, marginalizing themselves as they move about the large empty frame. The camera even goes so far as to linger a little too long at times, waiting long after the actors have exited the frame, making sure that the audience is aware that the hollowness, these spaces they live and think in exist without them, these voids the audience is watching never go away.

These sentiments are echoed by the well penned script. The father's regret over the madness of his deceased wife, the husbands jealousy, his inability to act, the nearly sexual love the brother feels for Karin, his isolation and inability to get over his immaturity. It's a delicately woven, exquisitely beautiful film on the landscapes of the mind and the solitude of life and the search for god. A good introduction to the psychological drama of Bergman for anyone unfamiliar with one cinema's masters.

this is one of bergman's most serious and devastating, sometimes horribly depressing and (it's only flaw) a little too heavy handed for even the toughest and healthiest viewers. it is fascinating to watch bergman come to terms with the absence of god and man's tragic isolation in an indifferent universe through the art he uses like no one else could or does, the art of film. karin is a mentally disordered young woman, intensely loved by her family and well cared for but nonetheless subject to bouts of extreme madness and delusions of divinity that are so convincing and well performed as to be hard to watch (particularly the scene where she is convinced that a deity disguised as a spider is going to crawl out of a closet). although it ends on a semi hopeful note, the film's atmosphere is largely one of sterility, emotional dryness, impoverishment and despair. karin lives on an isolated island just as we inhabit a vast, incomprehensible universe that is essentially little but a doomed speck of dust in a monstrous cosmos that does not care. i think there can be little debate as to the correct interpretation of this movie, which is the utter void at the center of false human beliefs and illusions of happiness or omnipotence. order is a lie and religious belief is founded on deliberate self deception. a masterpiece of the most passionate artistry and integrity.