Through A Glass Darkly/Winter Light

I've heard that Ingmar Bergman directed comedies as well as drama but I can't imagine they are as funny and frivolous as his dramas are depressing and heavy. Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence make up what Bergman called his trilogy of faith. Each takes as part of its central premise the question of God, his ability to answer to those who are in crisis. If one watches from Glass Darkly through The Silence, one gets an ever increasing pessimistic view of god.

Through A Glass Darkly (the title clearly coming from the famous 1 Corinthians 13) follows Karin as she descends into madness and her brother Minus, her husband Martin and her father David are all helpless. Karin is increasingly convinced that God is coming and that she will be able to see him. Minus struggles with his love for his sister and his problematic situation with his father. Martin and David have their own complicated relationship.

This is not a movie to watch if you are in a bad place in life. Watching descending madness and how loved ones cannot stop it, not to mention verbal attestations of desire for suicide or that someone would just die are DEPRESSING. Which is why the film is so utterly fantastic and so utterly unbearable to watch at the same time. And yet there is an positive message at the end about the idea of God as Love and you leave the film melancholy to be sure but at least you have a glimpse of hope.

Winter Light abandons the idea of hope. It is a bit heavier handed and deals with a pastor who has lost his faith as he complains about the silence of god. He is pined after by his mistress and tries to deal with a suicidal parishioner. I honestly watched in horror as the pastor attempted to comfort his suicidal mentee with a speech about how he had lost his own faith. And how cruelly he dismisses his mistress and just in general how dark this man's life had become without god. There is no positive glimpse of hope at the end. The idea of God as Love is abandoned completely. Again another one that is hard to watch but also powerful.

Max von Sydow is in both films and I find myself increasingly impressed by his range and power as an actor and truly saddened that before I started watching Bergman films I only knew him as the decrepit king in Conan the Barbarian. I admit Bergman might be acquired taste but he is incredible to watch.