DVD Review: Cries and Whispers (A)

Cries and Whispers (1972)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Starring Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullman
MPAA: R
Grade: A

Movie Review By Ellyn Elm

Cries and Whispers is an intense study of love and death. Director, Ingmar Bergman, creates striking contrasts between claustrophobic interior scenes and carefree exterior scenes, protracted silences and superficial conversations, the empty and stagnating lives of two sisters versus the quiet and graceful life of one sister, Agnes, who is dying of cancer.

Agnes (Harriet Andersson) receives little comfort from her sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Marie (Liv Ullman) as neither is capable of the empathy. Only Agnes’s servant, Anna (Kari Sylwan), is able to offer solace to the dying woman. This idea is reinforced several times with images of Anna cradling Agnes to her breast in a pose mirroring Michaelangelo’s Pieta.

The film uses flashbacks to create a composite view of each woman’s life. Marie is selfish and childlike, reveling in hedonistic pleasures of flirtation and seduction. Karin is cold and distant, afraid of human contact even reviling it. Agnes, in the throws of a long and painful death, is yet able to see the inherent beauty of life in her recollections of past times strolling in the gardens with her sisters.

As Agnes's suffering becomes more horrific, Karin and Marie are forced to examine their relationships, despite the painful truths they must uncover. But in the end the sisters are no better off after the funeral than they were before. Cries and Whispers is often uncomfortable to watch as Bergman forces the viewer to confront the terrifying specter of death head-on. Religion is meaningless as even after her death, Agnes does not find peace. It is only through Anna’s love that Agnes is able to shuffle off this mortal coil. True connection is what matters in life and in death - everything else is irrelevant.

This film is beautiful in its stark simplicity. The pace is dream-like, and Bergman is able to create an ethereal mood without resorting to grotesque morbidity. Visually, Cries and Whispers is stunning. Anyone who appreciates a well crafted film will surely enjoy this one despite its rather heavy subject matter.

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