La pasión de Ana

The Passion of Anna (or The Passion, as it might've been more appropriately titled in Sweden), is Ingmar Bergman with a cast of some of his most recognizable faces- Max Von Sydow (Seventh Seal), Liv Ullman (Persona), Erland Josephsson (Scenes from a Marriage), and Bibi Anderson (Cries and Whispers) - and with a script he's written that shows him not entirely sure, or rather confident, as he usually is as a filmmaker.

He uses improvisation with his actors in some scenes, experiments with what's in the story and what's outside of the story (it's self-conscious but good self-conscious, similar in tune with Persona's self-consciousness of a film being made outside of what's in the story), and deals away with his classic themes of despair, self-drought, and inner-maelstroms. And, indeed, the theme of deconstruction of the soul is in focus. For a couple of moments some of the self-consciousness could come off as distracting, or at most dangerous boring, but there are counter-weights to balance out whatever troubles Bergman must've had that he's pouring out onto the celluloid.

While I thought the Passion of Anna wasn't one of Bergman's very best works, it has a story and characters (and with a cast that doesn't do wrong within any given scene) that remain as potent as in his masterpieces. The sub-plot involving the slaying of the animals on the island maybe could've been developed more, but that too brings a thought-provoking backbone to the central characters. At the core, Bergman's presenting the audiences with people who are in a hell-ish situation, with fires and blood being spread along the fields, and that these people feel more or less stuck here.

The relationship between Andreas (Von Sydow) and Anna (Ullman) is the strongest asset to the film, and for their performances it's nearly worth it enough to rush out to buy the DVD. But beneath that, this is a Bergman film that could grow on a particular viewer over time. Maybe upon a first viewing, at least for what I came away with, the style may be trying to one-up over the substance, and that could be what hinders this from being a magnificent work of art on the level of Persona or The Seventh Seal. However, it's also holds subtleties to the craft, to the compositions by Sven Nykvist, and in the emotions conveyed by the principles of the cast.

Pretty haunting, evocative, though not entirely perfect, this is definitely an intriguing Bergman entry. Grade: (strong) A-

If you take a shovel, and dig right into the middle, there are things you'll likely find, quite impossible to riddle, conundrums wrapped entwined, blind alleys, sacs that bind, confusion, chaos, mayhem all well signed; encompassing them all, is the fear of standing tall, of being seen to fall, of rejection all around, the desire to be found, the need to melt into the ground, just to live as if not bound; but you're moulded in their vision, taught to be so since incision, told what, where, when, who you are, plasters, shields overlay scars, behaviours born from who knows where, send your chaos to despair, no support for your constructions, can relieve these sad contortions.

If you don't recognise something in them in you, you're in denial.

I think, En passion is indeed not a perfect film, but who likes perfection? In fact, I think, up to now, it belongs in Bergman's top 10 and is a great addition to the issues argued in Vargtimmen, Skammen and Rite. All these characters here are not really authentic, but one: Verner, the old man suspected by the villagers on that island to be the animal abuser, and therefore excruciated. Everyone else, including Andreas, Anna and the couple they are friends with, are people who call for problems, get entrapped by them and catapult themselves into an almost-catastrophe. It's interesting that Verner, writes to Andreas, who seems to be the worst of all, i.e. most un-authentic, a suicide note, saying: "I can't look into anyone's eyes anymore", is, to my understanding, the key to the film - self-made problems contrasted with problems created externally. Given Verner's suicide, driven by slander and torture, Andreas' and Anna's issues in their relationship fade, normally, but then an axe gets involved, a stable burns down and a horse runs off, ablazed, kindled by the real animal tormentor who still is on the loose. An inferno.

What I like most about this film, though, is its situational context: the island. I can't think of another Bergman film where the environment plays a bigger role than here. All figures are moving in a lost, iced vastness, in defoliated, sparse woods, get stuck in morass and dirt. Animals get brutally tortured and killed, wood gets chopped, wagons bog down in mud. The forlornness and menace of the people in nature is wonderfully captured by Nykvist, mostly in long, high-angle or panoramic shots and is an intriguing contrast to the interior (of the cottages, where the talking, cheating and fighting takes place) - inside there lurks the psychic, outside there's the physical death. That is a great imagery. However, I'm not satisfied with these interview snippets which I think is a nice idea (such as Bergman's verbal directions in the off in Vargtimmen), but it's executed quite poorly.

Another film from Ingmar Bergman focusing on existential angst, and which has some pretty bleak commentary on life. It's one that you probably have to watch as symbolically as literally, and while it's dark, I found the balance between the two to be good, and the film to be thought-provoking. The isolation of the island that the four main characters live on, with all of its cruelty and harsh conditions, resembles the isolation of the human condition, and we see four unique responses to it, all of them troubling. Amidst their personal turmoil, we also see scenes of animal slaughter taking place at the hands of some psychopath loose on the island, and hear about the torture of a guy falsely accused of the crime at the hands of a mob. Fun stuff, eh? Hey, pass the popcorn!

In an excellent dinner party scene early on, with the camera focused in turn on each one of the main characters for an interval, we get an insight into their varying personalities, which I saw as being marked by idealism, insecurity, isolation, and indifference:

• Idealism - Anna (Liv Ullmann). This character has responded to her husband and child's absence by wrapping the story of her marriage up in a rosy vision, but her frequent mention of honest communication and love in marriage are lies, which we know because of a letter that's been discovered. She's also called out by Adreas for her mourning of a friend's death, which he says is "nothing but theatrics." Is she being hypocritical or he being cruel, or both? Perhaps the closest thing we see to reality with her is in a dream sequence, which has a brilliant long shot from Sven Nykvist and the narration "I was alone on the road. I felt a terrible longing for companionship, for an embrace, for rest. And at the same time, I knew this was gone forever."

• Insecurity - Eva (Bibi Andersson). Even though she's well capable of expressing herself, it was telling to me that when she's asked if she believes in God, she turns briefly to her husband and asks "Do I believe in God, Elis?" Her best lines come later, when she's with Andreas and says "It's difficult when you realize one day you're completely meaningless. That nobody needs you, even though all you want to do is give."

• Isolation - Andreas (Max von Sydow). His character is the one that has the clearest signs of angst. He is so broken and finds it so difficult to get along with people, let alone be in in a relationship, that he prefers lonely solitude. He has a long, despairing speech towards the end which I quote below, and like Ingrid Thulin's character in 'The Silence' (1963), he fears death and is haunted by "ghosts and memories." Lest we feel bad for him, though, in one scary moment he comes at Anna with an axe, and then beats her. He is clearly capable of the great violence we're aware of others committing in the film, and as he seems to represent an "Everyman" of sorts, there is certainly a comment in that.

• Indifference - Elis (Erland Josephson). To me, while he has a smaller role, he's the most disturbing of all. We first glimpse his cynicism when he says of a building he's architecting, "It is a mausoleum representing the total futility in which our kind of people live." He collects and carefully catalogs photographs of people in various emotional states, but he is cold and emotionally distant himself. As the actor explains when Bergman breaks the fourth wall and shows an interview clip with him (as he does with the others), "I think Elis Vergerus finds it hypocritical to be horrified by the madness of humans and that it's emotional carelessness to cry out for decency and justice. He's decided that human suffering won't keep him up at night. He feels he's completely indifferent in both his own and others' eyes. And those are the conditions he lives by. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to function." It's the nihilism and uncaring cruelty in that line, "human suffering won't keep him up at night" that is so chilling to me.

The real world is still out there beyond this little island, albeit visible only through grainy TV reception, and it's equally horrifying. Just as in 'The Silence', what we see is a glimpse of warfare - though here it's one of the most difficult to watch scenes from the Vietnam War, that of a South Vietnamese soldier matter-of-factly shooting a Viet Cong POW in the head. We don't actually see the bullet fired in the film, but viewers at the time would have been well familiar with the horror of this imagery.

All of these characters are seeking refuge from the difficulty of life, and by wrapping themselves up in one coping mechanism or another, they're lying to themselves or to those around them. I see a spectrum of awareness to life's horrors, ranging from Anna (unware and naïvely delusional), to Eva (somewhat aware), to Andreas (aware and depressed), to Elis (aware and not giving a crap). Is this how we progress in our views over the course of our lives?

With the possible exception of Eva who is the most sympathetic, I don't think I'd want the world populated with characters of these four types, but a little voice within me asked "but is it?" as I thought of that. Bergman at 51 seems to think so. He underlines this further by giving Andrea's character an aspect of repetition, both in having the same name as Anna's old husband, as well as in the last line from the narrator, seen as von Sydow paces back and forth as if trapped in an existential box: "This time he was called Andreas Winkelman." Brutally, brutally stark.

Here's the long quote, from Andreas (Max von Sydow): "It's terrible not being fortunate. Everybody thinks they have the right to decide over you. Their benevolent contempt. A momentary desire to trample something living. I'm dead, Anna. No, no, I'm not dead. That would be too melodramatic. I'm not dead at all. But I live without self-respect. I know that sounds silly - pretentious - since almost all people are forced to live without self-worth. Humiliated to the core, stifled and spat upon. They just live. They know nothing more. They know no alternative. Even if they did, they would never reach for it. You understand?

Can you be sick from humiliation? Is it a disease we're all infected by and we have to live with? We talk so much about freedom, Anna. Isn't freedom a terrible poison for the humiliated... or is the word 'freedom' only a drug the humiliated use in order to endure. I can't live with this. I've given up. Sometimes it's unbearable. The days drag by. I feel like I'm choking on the food I swallow, the crap I get rid of, the words I say. The light - the daylight which comes every morning and yells at me to get up. Or the sleep which always brings dreams, chasing me back and forth. Or just the darkness rattling with ghosts and memories. Has is ever occurred to you, Anna, that the worse off people are, the less they complain? Eventually they're silent... even though they're living creatures with nerves, eyes, and hands. Massive armies of both victims and executioners. The light which rises and sinks heavily. The cold approaches. Darkness. The heat. The smell. And everyone is silent. We can never leave this place. I don't believe in escape. It's too late. Everything's too late."

Bergman is a name one hears so often, and it is so associated with slowness and close-ups that he's intimidating even before one gets to watch him. I picked this movie off the shelf just as I could have picked any other of his movies, and since I haven't seen others, I wouldn't know how to compare this to the rest of his work.

But I liked it, I really liked it. I didn't find it as 'slow' as much as 'focused,' where even the twitch of an eyebrow or a glance to the left is an action. This minuteness was truly amazing. In a lot of ways it reminded me of Bresson's Journal of a Country Priest. Because of this minuteness, I also found it very cruel and raw. I am particularly thinking of the scenes with the animals (not only the sheep, but the dog as well, and especially the bird).

And I have to say something about the colors. They were amazing, so warm and so different from the narration, which was in itself detached and indifferent (maybe 'disinterested' is a better word). The light was amazing (like what seemed like an eternal sunset when Eva and Andreas have dinner). If this were a painting I suppose it would be realist or naturalist work, but the way the interviews cut in make it hyper-realist. Other reviewers have criticized this but I found it as adding depth to the characters, because it gave them a new, real, life.

The English title is misleading though, because it forces the viewer to focus on Anna, whereas the original title doesn't do that. I found myself waiting for things to happen to Anna until I found out that there was no reason for that to happen.

I am very happy to have seen this, and will definitely not shy away from watching more Bergman movies.