CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972)

A.K.A.: Viskningar och Rop

Country: Sweden

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Cast: Kari Sylwan / Harriet Andersson / Ingrid Thulin

Plot

Three estranged sisters, Agnes, Karin, and Maria are reunited as Agnes battles cancer.  As death draws closer, the sisters struggle with their inability to emotionally connect with one another.  Instead, Agnes finds comfort and compassion in Anna, her devoted maid.

What I Liked

The first element that will strike any viewer of “Cries and Whispers” is Sven Nykvist’s Academy Award winning cinematography.  Right away, we’re treated to the gorgeous melancholia of a country estate in the cascading light of the dewy early morning.  These images are then contrasted with intensely close studies of a dozen or so ornate clocks, the camera peering deeply into every crevice and swirl of their designs.  As the drama itself begins to actually play out, the visual design fills our eyes with two colors so frequently that they feel almost in competition with one another: deep, bloody reds and pure, angelic whites.

The only break we get from those colors are the faces that often completely fill the screen.  Each of the four main characters are shown in such extreme close-up that the viewer almost feels as though the character’s personal space is being invaded.  We are made the uncomfortable witnesses to every twitch of the mouth, furrow of the brow or flutter of the eyelash, pointing out the emotional intensity of truly becoming close to a person physically and emotionally.  Nykvist and director Ingmar Bergman certainly chose the perfect approach to shooting a movie about the lack of true closeness between human beings and the agony experienced in trying to mend that rift.

Of course, if you’re going to repeatedly fill your screen with the faces of your characters you better have some interesting characters and some capable actors to play them.  Thankfully, both are present in “Cries and Whispers.”  Each sister, and Anna too, has a complex psychology augmented by flashback and fantasy scenes that illuminate her individual struggles, faults, and perspectives.  The characters are so wonderfully developed over the full length of the film that at times it really feels more like a novel more than a film.  Most importantly, the performances are absolutely above criticism.  Each actress seems to truly understand her character and successfully uses that character to illustrate the frail line between passion and restraint that is the crux of the entire film, including its title.  The cinematography and performances combine to make the film almost painful to watch at times for how honestly and palpably it displays the dilemma of humanity.

What I Didn’t Like

*spoiler alert!*

Symbolism pervades nearly every moment of “Cries and Whispers,” to the point where it eventually feels heavy handed.  A film cannot be interesting on symbolism alone.  There needs to be some kind of emotional investment, as well as intellectual.  That emotional investment is slow to develop through the early portion of the movie.  Bergman seems so intent on getting across the dysfunction at the heart of the sisters’ relationships and their shortcomings as individuals, we have very little chance to get to like them before the conflict gets going.  We certainly feels sympathy for cancer-stricken Agnes, of course, but never get to truly feel for her sisters until she passes away about half way through.   Now Bergman does a great job of making up for lost time by doing a great deal to explore the two living sisters and exploring their psychologies, but it would have been nice to have had this happen earlier.  It certainly would have made the first half of the film more engaging.  As it is, you don’t really have an action packed plot; more sympathy for the characters might have made the film less dull.

Most Memorable Scene

Toward the film’s end Bergman gives us what is probably a dream sequence, but whether or not the events on screen were truly part of a dream or not is never explicitly explained.  Instead we are left to wonder if the nightmarish tragedy we witness is the figment of Anna’s imagination or is actually some supernatural happening that the women choose to never speak of again.  Either way, the scene is a heartbreaking illustration of the horrors of mankind’s failure to embrace love.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5