#701 Persona 1966 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman Criterion Collection (LINK) Persona is one of the greatest film, if not the best of all time, of Ingmar Bergman whose body of works ranging from sex comedy to bleak existential crisis, from Mozart’s opera to television series. I have incessantly awed by the uniqueness of Persona ever since I… Continue reading #701 Persona (1966)
#60 Autumn Sonata 1978 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman Criterion Collection (LINK) Ingmar Bergman‘s best works always find a way to explore the human soul thoroughly by channeling its inner “demon” via either the spiritual route (loss of faith and existential crisis) or the family route (futility of marriage and scarred childhood). Of course there is often… Continue reading #60 Autumn Sonata (1978)
#229 Scenes from a Marriage 1973 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman Criterion Collection (LINK) Rewatching Scenes from a Marraige in 2018, I’m completely stunned by how timely and contemporary it still holds. It’s a modernistic deconstruction of marriage and an assessment of the underlying issues that result in its dissolution, which are still aptly… Continue reading #229 Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
Face to Face 1976 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman Finally I got the chance to watch the complete TV version, the 176-minute Face to Face in theater, since I have only watched the theatrical version once several years ago. I remember I liked the film well enough then, but this time sitting at the theater… Continue reading Face to Face (1976)
#101 Cries and Whispers 1972 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman Criterion Collection (LINK) A bloody red hue fills up the entire screen, and becomes the flesh and blood of Cries and Whispers. The reddish palette draws us instantly into a sensual realm, constituting of agony, suffering and torment. Then, a feeble sound of a ringing… Continue reading #101 Cries and Whispers (1972)
Shame 1968 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman (Available on FilmStruck) The last thing I expect from a Bergman film is explosion. Preciously, an explosion from bombing. But never say never, in Shame Bergman surprises me by making a war film with actual explosions and machine gun shooting. But nope, don’t expect the Hollywood type of heroic patriotism,… Continue reading Shame (1968)
Hour of the Wolf 1968 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman (Available on FilmStruck) Hour of the Wolf is by and large an allegory of disintegration, a psychological depiction of a man’s declination into insanity. Like the dreams in Wild Strawberries (1957) and the introductory montage in Persona (1966), Hour of the Wolf is built from… Continue reading Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Saraband 2003 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman Ingmar Bergman has made two “last” films throughout his near 60-year career in cinema, Fanny & Alexander (1983) is his farewell to cinema and the demons in his childhood, by channeling the ghosts of his past he finds reconciliation. In Saraband, the one last film he finished before passing… Continue reading Saraband (2003)
The Serpent’s Egg 1977 // Germany, USA // Ingmar Bergman The Serpent’s Egg has been considered as one of the weakest efforts amid Ingmar Bergman’s output, and perhaps best remembered as Bergman’s first film made outside Sweden during his exile due to the lawsuit of tax evasion in which Bergman eventually won the vindication at the… Continue reading The Serpent’s Egg (1977)
The Passion of Anna 1969 // Sweden // Ingmar Bergman Ingmar Bergman, the director: Max, as an actor, what is your personal view of Andreas Winkelman? Max von Sydow: He is awfully difficult in one way, because he has tried to hide from the world around him. His unhappy marriage and his legal worries have… Continue reading The Passion of Anna (1969)
The Films in My Life (OnCriterion) 