All About the Bergmans

In calendar years past, I've decided to commit to watching 10 films by any director I've wanted to dig into a little bit more. I started with Scorsese, did Hitchcock in 2024, and opted for Ingmar Bergman in 2025. To complement my experience and hopefully achieve a greater depth of understanding of his works, I also figured I'd assign myself reflections after each viewing.

Persona - 1/30/25

This was my second—and first successful—attempt at Persona. My first go was when I was a sophomore in college, posted up in a weird corner of the Memorial Union where I was supposed to be doing prep work for a final essay on American Psycho and Martin Amis’s Money for my postmodern literature class. At some point my brain was hurting, so I turned to the Criterion Channel instead and thought I could handle Persona in broad daylight, on my laptop screen, and with the constant shuffling of my fellow students all around me. I had already seen my first Bergman—Winter Light—but I was still ill-prepared. I think I made it 10 minutes before realizing I was not in an environment or headspace conducive to a proper watch. 

Flash forward six years. It’s a bit of a strong start for my year of 10 Bergmans. I will freely admit I am not yet sure what to make of Persona, and there’s a chance I never will be. I do think that’s one of its strengths; a quick glance at the Letterboxd comments and any synopsis of the film reveals the consensus is that there is no consensus. Ultimately, Bergman was, as the kids say, cooking with this one. It’s deeply intriguing, provocative, and contains some of the most striking imagery ever filmed. I don’t know what I could say in brief that would make for meaningful commentary or an insightful contribution to the discourse, so I’ll leave it on that cowardly note. 

Scenes from a Marriage - 2/22/25 

Perhaps you have wondered…what if a movie was almost three hours long and comprised almost entirely of conversations between just two characters? Look no further than the U.S. theatrical cut of Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage. I selected this as my next Bergman watch on a whim and was a bit stunned when I flipped over my DVD and saw the runtime. I struggle a bit watching three hour flicks at home, but I had a lucky open Saturday night this weekend that I could spend with Johan and Marianne to accommodate my library pull. 

Scenes from a Marriage is truly and utterly brilliant. The thought of writing something so lengthy, so fleshed out, and so real makes my head spin. It’s a truly comprehensive look at the dissolution of a marriage and offers valuable insight into Swedish life during that era. Besides Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann, it shares a few common threads with Persona. Namely, untruth in relationships and mothers who are apparently indifferent to their children (if not the whole world), but also some similarity in form with the film’s progression being conversation-based. Like Persona, Scenes is mostly two people talking (the former, I suppose, is technically mostly one person talking at the other), and the plot is dependent on the discussion deteriorating. Amongst the topics covered in both films is infidelity and a lack of love towards offsprings, which are underscored by a character who is trapped by societal expectations. The worlds of Persona and Scenes are cold and impersonal… not unlike the Scandinavian items that furnish their homes. 

In Persona, Elisabet appears indifferent to the affections of both her husband and son—Alma goes on a tangent when the line between them is blurring; she talks about how Elisabet never really wanted to be a mother and doesn’t really love her son. Marianne, perhaps in the spur-of-the-moment during an argument, tells Johan she doesn’t love him or their children. Both these women (Elisabet, to whatever extent Alma is projecting onto her) speak as though they are playing a role, which is something much more befitting of Elisabet as an actress but probably a much deeper reflection of something happening in Swedish society at the time (or maybe just Bergman’s life). Suffice to say that, in both films, there’s plenty of commentary on gender roles for women and the associated societal expectations. In Scenes, there’s the addition of the male perspective: Johan. The movie adds another layer to expectations; the dinner guests at the beginning of the film imply that the man cheats in any marriage and that it’s rare for a marriage to last. They are shocked by Marianne and Johan’s purported happiness, and after a few drinks, they confess the husband’s infidelity. They speak as if it’s natural, and, as a matter of fact, Johan eventually leaves Marianne in a similar fashion, running off with a much younger woman and leaving his family and kids behind.

It’s also a tale as old as time. It’s not reflective of what we modernly term as traditional values, sure, but even Henry VIII kept swapping them out. Scenes elevates cheating to the same importance as marriage and children: it’s common, and it’s only natural. That’s interesting. I don’t know too much about Bergman’s personal life, but I’m pretty sure that tracks (not uncommon with certain directors, I suppose). Of course, the film’s resolution shirks all of that. Johan and Marianne, unhappy in their second (I actually think it’s third for Marianne) relationship, find love and solace together again. An entire movie about the confines of marriage, and I almost want to say the ending balks at the idea, but it really doesn’t. It doesn’t endorse Marianne and Johan’s marriage, just their relationship. Their relationship doesn’t work within a marriage. 

Another notable thing—at the very end of Scenes, Marianne is gripped by a fear that she has never loved and never been loved. I assume Elisabet and Alma felt this too. 

Autumn Sonata - 3/31/25

I’m starting to get scared of Scandinavians… and maybe that energy should be directed squarely to Ingmar Bergman. That cute note about never loving and never being loved I ended my thoughts on Scenes on… Ingrid Bergman basically says the same thing verbatim in Autumn Sonata! 

Let me rewind a bit. Autumn Sonata is Ingmar Bergman’s first collaboration with Ingrid Bergman, both of whom remain the world’s leading Swedes of cinema (sorry, Skarsgards, you’re not quite there yet). The former a directorial powerhouse, the latter a generational actress. You know them, you love them. In this Bergman film, Bergman plays Charlotte, the estranged, professional pianist mother to the demure Eva (portrayed—surprise!—by Liv Ullmann) and the disabled Helena (Lena Nyman). She arrives for a stay with Eva and her pastor husband and is surprised to find that Helena also resides on the premises. As innocent as Eva appears, as emotionally vulnerable as she appears before her mother, there’s an underlying cynicism and readiness for confrontation. She and her husband mock her mother behind her back. 

Sonata is another film that progresses through conversation that only grows more revelatory and tense. Woah! There are a handful of ways in which Bergman doesn’t really expand his take on relationships in this one—abortion, not loving your husband, not loving your child… we’ve seen all that before at this point ( and by “we” I mean “me” and by “at this point” I mean “three Bergmans in”). Eva makes it clear that her mother’s coldness directly affected her and that the greater attention paid to her art and career—Charlotte eventually accepts this as truth, which I think is objective and apparent to the audience. I think Helena is the more notable daughter—if only because her disability can be read as a more overt metaphor. Helena can be understood as a manifestation of the emotional scars left by Charlotte’s coldness—maybe even a bit of arrested development from their bad childhood. She needs help with everything and has trouble communicating… a bit like a baby/toddler. I’m sorry to reduce a disabled character to that, but I’m afraid she really only exists in the film as collateral damage. Eva even says Helena’s condition is probably worse because of their mother’s treatment, and I think there’s projection there. Superficially, Eva seems to have it all together in his little life and marriage, but she’s broken inside. 

The only other thing I can note about the mother/daughter dynamic in this film is that Charlotte, as the one with a professional career as an artist, may be the (Ingmar) Bergman insert. By 1978, I’m fairly certain Bergman had been through a few wives and families. I do believe in death of the author and that a creator’s intentions and background aren’t paramount to interpretation, so this whole aside might seem hypocritical, but I would be ignoring the truth as much as Charlotte if I ignored the fact that Bergman puts some of himself in his work. As a final thought… I’m curious if Isabella Rossellini has any thoughts on this movie. 

The Magician - 5/20/25

I found The Magician to be a welcome change of pace from the prior slate of sad IKEA movies, but still think it’s probably the least interesting of what I have watched so far. I hate to say that because it is a genuinely nice change, but I feel like the stakes were less existential and a lot different than what I’ve come to expect from Bergman. It’s very grounded and plot-based and less cerebral. Even though it flirts with themes of sex and marriage, there isn’t a whole lot of exploration of interiority or the baring of repressed truths like Persona, Scenes, or Autumn Sonata. That being said, there’s strong themes of what’s real versus fake—portrayed mostly in a very literal way. The troupe is confronted with skeptics who don’t believe in their magic act, of course, and there are other base characteristics (like Volger pretending to be mute) that require belief and a level of trust. No, it’s not exactly people pretending to be faithful or happy in marriage or as parents, but it still speaks to terms of the social fabric like my first three 2025 Bergman watches.

The Magician stands out as a bit scary, what with the Johan character (seemingly) dying in the swamp, reappearing, and then Vogler surviving and appearing to haunt the man performing his own autopsy. It’s a cool enough film, but far from my favorite of the Bergmans I’ve seen so far. 

Cries and Whispers - 6/11/25

Probably my favorite of this Bergman journey so far. Certainly second to my initial Winter Light watch, which I will be returning to this year and hope to love as much as I did the first time.

Unfortunately, I am writing this one whole month after my viewing. I’ve really just been very busy and have put off digesting this film, which really means that I’m just hungry and ready for what’s coming next. My feelings aren’t as raw and my memory isn’t as lucid, so please bear with me. Fortunately, for my viewing and for the sake of a good segue, my June business pertained to a personal matter that reasonably corresponded with some of the themes of the film.

I think all families are a little fractured. My own is pretty close-knit and reliable, but I do get the sense that I am not party to some of the older and maybe deeper wounds. When a family member goes down and we have to assemble, there’s still hints of tension and a touch of stinging from old scars. 

Cries and Whispers tells the story of three sisters, their maid, and their husbands/lovers. Agnes, dying of cancer in their childhood home decorated in bright scarlet, writhes in pain as she nears the end of her life with her sisters, Karin and Maria, at her side. Her maid, Anna, tends to her with care, and the husbands/lovers are about but not as important. Being both a period piece and a Bergman film really sets the stage for it to be about strained and constrained relationships (especially when it comes to the societal expectations of women). Before I delve into these ladies’ problems, I have to note what I think might be a theme in class. 

The film is overtly about the suffering of women, but I think (probably because Bergman is not the greatest feminist the world has ever seen) it casts some blame on them and the way they wallow in it. Maybe because I’ve come to like and understand Bergman I’m making excuses for him, but I’m choosing to view this as a critique of class. Karin and Maria, for example, have kind of made their own problems. Karin would’ve faced societal pressure to marry—and that’s of course being generous to the standards of the time, I’m sure she didn’t have any other choice—but the choice to self-mutilate, to freeze her husband out, arguably makes her life more difficult. I really hope I don’t sound like I’m making a case for marital rape, especially when women of all kinds have suffered it throughout history, but that’s sort of my point. Lower class women experience those societal pressures and misogynistic indignities all the same, but they also have to work, endure greater obstacles for their children and family, and have little to no creature comforts. Those women don’t have the room to dredge up further strife in their marital relationships. Maria’s situation is similar, though I’m less sympathetic towards her problem. Her affair with the doctor is an unforced error in her marriage—she might’ve been in love with the doctor and unable to divorce her husband because of society, but… choices.

Contrast their lives and marriages with Anna, who has to labor for these cold women and has suffered the unimaginable loss of a child. More so, the dying sister is the one who has shown her kindness… kind of lesbianly, too, I might add. Having endured the death of her child, Anna is uniquely poised to deal with death. Regardless, given her service position, she would’ve had to face it anyway. You see this woman powering through, keeping her head high in the face of real human adversity, all while the wealthy family she works for is debating whether or not to give her severance pay after her good friend (lover?) painfully passes. 

As I've said, these people are cold. Their mansion however… is a shocking red. The color, most often associated with passion, takes on a totally different identity in Cries and Whispers. Such a clever contrast, Mr. Bergman. There’s also an element of horror in the film with the sequence that does go with the scarlet, though to moot my own point before even really making it, I do think it’s chiefly meant to be commentary on the chilly family relations. The scene is to be understood as a dream/nightmare in which Agnes is raised from the dead and approaches her sisters, who both reject and flee her. It’s a genuinely gruesome sight that makes for a frightening scene. Anna, naturally, is the one who touches her, holds her, and comforts her. 

Plainly, Cries and Whispers is commentary on the family unit. It’s more women who struggle with their husbands, with their children, and with each other, though they are meant to be tied by the inimitable bonds of familial love. Intimacy has become foreign, almost alien. Caring for their sister is undergirded by fear (that Bergman makes literal with his supernatural nightmare sequence), but the sisters weren’t always like that. The film concludes with a happy memory from Agnes’s diary, a nostalgic reflection of a moment in time at the house with her sisters that she describes as “happiness.” There’s something that’s lost with what comes with the pressure of aging and as society begins to interfere. Bergman works the bonds that bring family together into something that can be manipulated, just as he remolds the color red. 

Sawdust and Tinsel - 8/26/25

Finally, a happy Bergman! Just kidding. 

I LOVED the opening of this film. Not necessarily the narrative framing—the carnie telling the story of Frost and Alma is nothing special, though I do get why it’s constructed that way—but the plain tragedy of it all. We hear the story of an awful day for the clown Frost. His wife, the beautiful and kind but foolishly coquettish Alma, is swimming nude amongst an entire regiment of leering soldiers. Frost, driven by rage and embarrassment, rushes to the shore, ditches his clothes and jumps in to save her from herself. A fellow carnie grabs their clothes from the rocks and hides them. Frost, with Alma in his arms, does his best to stumble out over the rocks, underdressed and in anguish. He trips and falls onto her on the rocks while the sailors and carnies all watch and laugh. It’s so wonderfully sad and tragic. It reminds me of He Who Gets Slapped, one of my favorite silent films, especially with sequences where the sound cuts out and the black and white spectacle is totally center stage.

What plot-wise might’ve been a B-movie in the Golden Age of Hollywood is totally elevated by Ingmar Bergman. Did you guys know this dude is good at making movies? Tell your friends. Before getting more into the characters’ relationships, I’m going to take one moment to appreciate Bergman’s blocking. In Sawdust and Tinsel in particular, he uses mirrors to his benefit. There’s one particular visual when Anne is in Frans’s apartment and he’s tricking her: we see Frans through the mirror, dangling his false payment and promise, and Anne straight-on (off center in the frame, but not through the mirror), tempted by his offer. Mirrors come into play later as well, as Alberti stews in his caravan and is confronted by Frost. It’s more than just interesting blocking—it’s thematically relevant. Our characters are all through the looking glass in more than one sense. On one hand, they’re circus performers. Some are outright “freaks,” but they are all ostracized from normal life and society because they are carnies. They are jeered in the streets, they are poor, they are infested, and their lives are divorced from normalcy. That’s the physical reality, but there’s another dimension to it that’s deeply embedded in the theme of the film.

Like the Bergmans before, this film entails strained romantic relationships. Frost and Alma, sure, but that’s a bit more of a secondary concern compared to Anne and Albert’s relationship at the heart of the film. Albert has abandoned his wife, family, and the comfort of home for Anne and the circus life, and with the circus fairing poorly, he is considering ditching everything again and going back. He meets with his wife, who fully rejects him and tells him that she feels nothing for him (very Bergmanian!), closing that door for him. Returning to the circus is his sentence, and the climax of the film surrounds his rejection and final acceptance of that. The more common trope of the era would’ve been the restrained and stuck housewife (or maybe husband), bound by marriage and traditional life and kept from whatever freer life they were meant to have, but this very much flips that on its head.

Albert and Anne’s relationship may not be tinged by issues with mental illness like Alma and Frost’s, but it shares the same lowness and humiliation. They are ostracized from society, never to settle down and follow tradition. The film opens with Frost angry and embarrassed by Alma—he has to go into the water to grab her and take her away. All that, and he still loves and adores her. Whatever troubles she brings are a burden he is up for bearing. It’s very romantic in that way, and much the same with Albert and Anne at the end of the film. They are resigned to their life together, tied together by circumstances and societal rejection (you kind of have to infer that being the case for Alma and Frost, but it’s not difficult to imagine the clown and the loose, mentally-ill woman as outcasts). The ending might feel a bit bleak—the characters have hardly made great gains in terms of their physical/financial situation—but the character arcs of Albert and Anne and their relationship resolves in what may be the best way possible: acceptance.

Hour of the Wolf - 9/2/25

I found this film to be the most passionate of the Bergman films I have watched thus far. I think I would largely attribute that to the film’s focus on dreams and the subconscious, but please don’t construe that I am saying more stuff happening equals more passion. I can’t deny it has bearing, but it’s definitely not that simple. 

There are some cool effects and visuals in this movie! The main thing that comes to mind is the part of the film where they are leading him towards Veronika—especially the instance where it’s a view from the ceiling-ish with Johan (and a crow or two) walking across elongated light cast from grand, arched windows. It’s a very cool shot. It’s just a bit shakey, and the pan is a bit uneven. I was pretty amused by that—like some of the weird cuts in Hitchcock movies I’ve seen. An awesome reminder that even the masters aren’t perfect. 

Speaking of Hitchcock, let’s get back to the birds. When Johan finds himself cornered by the murder, one of the spooky/mean castle people appears, only for wings to sprout from his back and join the flock. It’s brief, but very cool. Bergman also uses the black and white color scale to his advantage, with the dream sequences borderline suffering from overexposure and the reality—especially the scene wherein Alma is awake with him—is so, so dark. There’s a touch of German Expressionism to the whole thing. It’s stylish. It’s not IKEA. It’s got verve.

I think this film has the same core as any other Bergman: fear and dissatisfaction. In movies like Persona, Scenes from a Marriage, and Autumn Sonata, these paranoias and ennui are dissected via conversation—whether between a married couple, patient and nurse, or mother and daughter. I would make the same claim about Cries and Whispers, except that it also indulges the supernatural, what with the soon-to-be deceased sister and then her corpse appearing active and haunting to the living characters. 

Hour of the Wolf is transparent with its horror influences. The title alludes to werewolves, even if it was meant to be associated more with this period of night Johan talks about. I assume Bergman either invented it, it’s a Swedish cultural thing, or it’s a broader (but antiquated) popular superstition that’s been lost over the years and I just haven’t heard. Whichever way, with my cultural references (or lack thereof), I fully expected Johan to turn into a werewolf, and I do think that is an intentional effect. With that scene where the boy bites him, presented to Alma after a tale of childhood trauma that might be the genesis of his problems, Bergman cleverly relates Johan’s dreams and subconscious to the viewers’ assumptions. After all, assumptions and biases originate with the unconscious. Bergman shows us a Johan who is uncertain of reality and simultaneously tests our own grasp of the situation. I’m failing to think of an example that predates this film, but it’s hardly a novel take on narrative storytelling. That doesn’t mean it’s not good!

Like Autumn, Persona, and Cries, the characters’ general isolation is a key aspect of the film. They’re on a sparsely inhabited island… and I’m not just talking about their marriage! Coldness and infidelity… now that seems familiar… Joking aside, I also have to note—in alignment with my earlier claim that this is perhaps the most passionate Bergman—that Alma’s love for Johan is amongst Bergman’s strongest and deepest depictions. She loves him so much she wants him to respect her, she keeps her jealousy about his ex lover at bay, and she allows his nightmares to become hers. Her ultimate question, whether or not she could have saved him if she loved him less or more, is touching and provocative. I don’t know the answer, but I think there’s something to be said about the fact that Johan’s fears were his past and his nightmares, and Alma’s central concerns were about their baby, their money, and him (all of which concern their future).

Through a Glass Darkly - 11/3/25

I can’t even joke like oh, just another cheery Ingmar Bergman film anymore because it’s really run its course. Besides, there are a couple things I see appearing/reappearing in this one that go beyond a generally dark theme. 

The first and most basic element is our setting. I’m familiar with Bergman Island so I do have a sense of the importance of the island in the Bergman mythos, but the weight of its significance is becoming so much clearer. Persona, Hour of the Wolf, and Through a Glass Darkly are all set on an island. Again, it’s something superficial to remark on, but it really sets the mood for each film and adds significant thematic emphasis. Like our other Bergmans, Through a Glass Darkly is about fractured relationships and the ways in which we are alienated from each other, both within marriages and families writ large. It touches on sexuality and tackles God and a bit of existentiality. Suffice to say, familiar territory for us at this point. The island, obviously, is a physical manifestation of our characters’ emotional estrangement. No man is an island, Ingmar Bergman whispers to himself, so true. 

My notes on this included a bullet that was just Incest? because I really wasn’t sure how I could touch on that and also add to the broader discussion, but I think I see an avenue. Primarily, if we’re thinking about strained familial relationships, having sex with your brother (or any sort of flirting or romantic/sexual contact) kind of gets you to the top of the list. However, if we consider sex pragmatically—as in more evolutionary and natural versus romantic or spiritual, which I think Bergman does— it almost makes sense. ALMOST!!! Like, besides the potential effects on offspring and social stigma, incest is kind of a base occurance. Of course, like the god that Karin sees emerging out the wall, appearing as a spider and trying to crawl inside her vagina, we understand it’s twisted and unnatural. I would say we could read into that along incestuous lines as well—God is, after all, the Heavenly Father of us all. I don’t know if this is also related to the fact that David, her biological father, maintains a far more special relationship with her than his son. She shares her ailment with her mother, so I have to assume that there is a psychosexual web (hmmm…) at play here.

More speculatively and related to previous watches, I think we see a little bit of incest pop up again in Cries and Whispers. Not blatantly, but I recall a scene where one of the sisters is professing to another that she has always been lonely and distant from others… and I remember thinking that they might kiss. Regarding other Bergmans, and also bridging off of the incest stuff, I just have to note that this film kind of features a nice marriage, at least in comparison to the other ones. It’s not perfect—Karin is sick and refusing the physical desires of Martin, her husband—but it’s remarkably better than the marriages/relationships of Persona, Scenes, and Sawdust. Martin cares deeply and loves Karin as a person, not just as his wife in a traditional sensibility. He occupies a similar role as Liv Ullman’s character in Hour of the Wolf as the partner to a person experiencing psychosis, but it’s nice to see the genders reversed in a world where men are more often granted the leeway of emotional coldness. He’s got a little bit of Frost (Sawdust and Tinsel) in him too—the in love and ever-abiding husband with the psychiatrically unstable wife. 

From the non-extensive biographical knowledge I have about Ingmar Bergman, I feel like this one touches the most on his relationship to his childhood and family—not directly, like the Hour of the Wolf closet, but more so a reflection of his yearning and the emotional distance between them. Minus, like Bergman, is a son with a distant father in David. Though David isn’t a preacher and isn’t apparently even conservative or particularly strict, there’s a significant rift between the father and son. David, being a writer, should’ve been proud of his son on some level for writing and putting on a play for him, even if the play is meant as a slight against him. I see the act of writing—creation, generally—here as an allegory for Bergman’s spiritual fixations. Bergman’s father would have lived and breathed his devotion to Christ and his strict interpretation of Christianity—Bergman lived and breathed art and film, and it’s clear to me that he viewed art as a venue to express and explore spirituality. The title of the film, taken from a Bible verse—for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known—speaks to his preoccupation with God in his art. His films are an attempt to grasp the spiritual, to parse and dispense for others his complex relationship and conception of it, but he can’t ever quite get there. His father should have understood that, but maybe he didn’t, like David. Karin might be the one literally looking for God in the cracks of the walls, but I think Minus’s attempts to catch the attention of his father reflect both the personal and spiritual relations of Bergman with his father and Father.

Wild Strawberries - 12/12/25

Talk about complementing the recently-released Sentimental Value (my favorite of 2025 at this point)! Stellan Skarsgard’s character having the surname Borg can’t be a coincidence. I actually don’t have a ton to say about Wild Strawberries—it didn’t totally blow me away, but it’s still a great movie. I’m not sure Bergman could disappoint me at this point. Besides his filmmaking prowess, I feel like I understand him and could connect with anything.

I’m just going to get the incest out of the way as soon as possible. I guess I’d argue here that love between cousins might’ve been more socially acceptable in those times, probably not even considered incest, but I still have to comment on it as a recurring aspect of these films. No, it’s not the same as the siblings in Through a Glass Darkly, partially for that reason, but also because I’m not sure the incestuous part is actually relevant thematically. Like, it’s less important that his lost love was his cousin and a good deal more important that she rejected him and married his brother (just for fun, let’s note that makes him also her cousin). 

Wild Strawberries is about an old man on a road trip, Isak Borg, reflecting on his life as he nears its end. The most important guest on his odyssey to town is the first—his daughter-in-law Marianne, a woman with which he has a less than warm relationship. Nonetheless, it’s the most important. Marianne is pregnant, and she brings the promise of new life and another generation to the Borg family. I’ll also add here, kind of as an aside, that she expresses that her husband, Evald, does not wish to have a child or become a parent because he’s not capable of love or whatever. In a Bergman film, it’s a nice change of pace to hear that sentiment from a man.

Isak reflects on a relatively idyllic childhood, full of the typical idiosyncrasies of family and lost love of teenage years. I’m not really sure if I’m supposed to understand the former as the scarring part for Isak. I don’t think so, especially by Bergman standards. Every moment isn’t happy, but I think it’s supposed to be clear that his childhood was as blissful as possible. His cousin Sara’s rejection of him was where it all started going downhill and the impetus of the sad IKEA movie-ness of the film. In the present times, Isak is frozen to his core. He’s a sad old man with a chilly relationship to everyone around him. 

How’d he get there? Thank you for asking. You see, the premise of the film is that this is revealed to the viewer as he makes his road trip to be honored on the anniversary of his doctorate. His first flashback, visions of his cousin’s rejection, is triggered by a stop at his family’s house on the way and compounded by the introduction of another Sara (both portrayed by Bibi Andersson, by the way). This Sara needs a ride and to make a choice between her two companions, Anders and Viktor, a duo in friendly competition over her as well as the existence of God. It’s very much the least serious god debate I’ve seen in a Bergman film. It’s not meaningless, but it doesn’t really have the existential weight of the themes of his other films. 

We also get a look at a dinner scene—there are some underlying tensions in the family, beyond even the cousin love triangle, but nothing crazy. It’s largely a picture of a happy family and a special childhood memory. I think we’re meant to see the beginnings of the fracturing of Isak's happiness, the way his innocence and general happiness began to shrivel up and die. As aforementioned, it’s the impetus of the sad IKEA movie-ness of the film. Relative to the overall theme of the film, I don’t think this development in Isak’s life is meant to be an experience unique to him. I think Bergman is trying to capture something universal, and, in some ways, Wild Strawberries is probably his most accessible film. It’s kind of topical for audiences addicted to therapy-talk and generational trauma and all of that. With that childhood splintering coupled with an unhappy marriage, it’s no wonder Isak struggles with warmth and family (I’m being lightly tongue-in-cheek—it’s just a bit corny and his character is undeniably Ebenezer Scrooge-y). 

Like I said at the start of this section, it makes a great companion piece to Sentimental Value, another film about an aging man staring down the end of his life as his past fights through. Gustav Borg is a bit more sympathetic, with the movie premised around a concerted effort by him to make amends with his daughter in his own way. It’s not unlike the way Isak and Marianne come to understand and like each other, but I think Isak stumbles into it a bit more. Either way, the films both conclude with the dispersal of the intergenerational malaise that plagues the families and end on notes of emotional closure (sorry for the Sentimental Value spoilers if you haven’t gotten to it yet). 

In the end, Wild Strawberries is a pleasant enough movie. The despair that grips its protagonist is not infinite. There is hope—even right up until the end. Bergman explores a lot of this in Cries and Whispers, albeit far more graphically and cruelly. Agnes writhes and suffers as she dies in a way that just can’t compare to Isak’s loneliness and sadness giving way to him dying in his sleep. They’re both tied by nostalgia for their youth and alienation from their family. There’s the overarching truth of their lives, though—that they are still capable of the love they once had and enjoyed. Agnes dies a miserable death compared to Isak, and in that way Cries and Whispers (because it is chronologically later) is a bit of regression for Bergman. 

The Seventh Seal - 12/20/25

Intentionally chosen as the last of my Bergmans for the year, The Seventh Seal did not disappoint. I was so moved by this movie. It’s pretty simple and overt, and while watching, I just let myself feel it. I was in tears when it ended. 

Superficially, I’ll make note of it being a period piece that puts us all the way back in medieval times, many centuries before any other Bergman film I’ve seen. It’s the perfect setting for such a depressing movie. I’d argue it makes the themes of the movie innately accessible. If someone struggled with the generalized depression and ennui of other Bergman characters who just don’t like their hollow lives surrounded by ugly IKEA furniture, I think they would be able to connect with Antonious Block, returning from an unsatisfactory Crusade to find a home literally plagued by death. Contemporaneously, we’re pretty far removed from the bad years of the Bubonic Plague, but I think most people are aware of the mass death that came from it—something like 40-60% of Europe’s population dead in such a horrific way. With little to no medical understanding (of anything really) and no answers, it all comes down to God. Questions about why he would reign such destruction on people from all walks of life naturally led to alienation, total spiritual despair, and literal witch hunts.

Block’s faith has already been tested by his Crusade trip. Many such cases, even amongst the lads that got to kick off their march on the Holy Land from parts of Europe closer to it than freaking Sweden. We learn from his cynical squire Jons that he was a man of great faith—not really a shock for anyone willing to Crusade. Block doesn’t really have much complexity to him. He’s an easy protagonist to get on board with on a mental and emotional level. Who wouldn’t find themselves in a spiritual crisis in such a situation?

So, the man questioning God has to also wrestle with Death. Along the same lines as setting the film amongst the Black Death, Block’s opposition to Death is hardly a subtle setup. He’s in a chess game with Death, as if Death is someone he could possibly outwit or beat. He thinks he can delay the inevidable—a little egotistically, I might add. To quote Reverend Toller, a character from the mind of Bergmanian-acolyte Paul Schrader: “Despair is a development of pride so great that it chooses one's certitude rather than admit God is more creative than we are.” I really think that Block’s belief that he could possibly beat Death is meant to read as that pride. It’s more than him trying to avoid dying at a time when he is uncertain of what lies beyond. It’s another facet of his lack of faith in God’s plans.

Reverend Toller also says: “Courage is the solution to despair, reason provides no answers. I can't know what the future will bring; we have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, Hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.”

The march of the flagellants is something to behold, and I’d argue it’s a hopeful act. Flagellation is something I adore conceptually. It’s very Catholic, very Middle Ages. Not at all très chic—it’s très archaic, but I think it’s a natural reaction to wanting to purge yourself of the sins of the flesh. It’s quite beautiful. With the Plague about, it’s a last ditch attempt at salvation—the only promise of relief from all of the earthly suffering. If the rest of your life’s misery isn’t good enough for God, some more self-afflicted pain should cinch eternal life for you and yours. It’s a different kind of despair, but one underscored by that last hope.

I am not a spiritual person. I don’t believe in ghosts or bad luck or any of that. I don’t worry much about breaking mirrors or knocking on wood, nevermind God or getting into heaven or any of that. However, I am hugely sympathetic to the struggle of belief. It does seem like something that, if you’re on the fence about it, would be all-consuming. Block says, “Faith is a torment, did you know that? It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call.” I’m not really sure we get an answer to his question of faith. His struggle with Death is, perhaps, all for naught. The title of the film, like Through a Glass Darkly, is another borrowed Bible verse, though it’s one that is quoted directly in the film: “When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” I can’t really speak too much to the overall spiritual meaning of this verse in the context of the Book of Revelation—which I am learning from Google is the final book of the Bible and speaks to the Day of Judgement and all that—but that one sentence is obviously weighty in the context of the film. We can maybe understand the silence part literally. In the world of the film, the seal has been opened, God is silent as foretold, and the judgement is impending. All there is to do is wait. 

The spectre of the danse macabre that haunts the The Seventh Seal is relevant here. Writing this after having recently seen 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a film in a series in which Ralph Fiennes’s character not only constructs the titular bone temple in the tradition of the ossuary (popuar in the plague times when the bodies were stacking up) but also tells the young hero memento mori to really drive the point home, I have to admit that the zombie movie moved me in the same way The Seventh Seal did. Yes, I am technically (and superficially) comparing Boyle/Garland/DaCosta to Bergman, but they align a bit as far as themes go. I’d also argue that the rage virus and the situation the 28 characters find themselves in is about as hopeless and godless as the bubonic plague. Either way, as a true cynic, I cried from the catharsis of it all. Like, it was borderline euphoric. Death is the end, and the end is inevitable. God, in many ways, doesn’t matter. And I always knew that :)

Conclusion, if there is even one to make

At the end of all this, ten films later, it is clear to me that I am not really cut out to fully remark on the works of Bergman. Each segment of this overview got longer, largely because I was able to relate similarities between the movies to each other and make some perfunctory comments. That being said, I don’t know that I achieved the depth I would’ve liked to. I felt the films, for sure, but I really do lack the spiritual and intellectual capabilities to fully understand Bergman. Something is just not clicking. The threads are all there in my mind and I just can’t tie them together. Am I stupid? Maybe. I’d never rule it out. 

What I can say, overall in my review, is that while I enjoyed films like Persona, Scenes from a Marriage, and Autumn Sonata, I’m happy I moved away from these more conversation-based films as I got further into my Bergmans. Again, the skill it takes to make a compelling film dialogue-driven can’t be understated, and it’s not as if Bergman’s other films are super action-driven. Cries and Whispers relies heavily on the relationship between the sisters, elucidated mainly by exchanges between them. Really, I feel compelled to continue lauding Bergman’s skill with dialogue. I think the way he is able to cover the nuances of interpersonal relations and the societal expectations that are embedded in family dynamics is evident across every one of his films, no matter the specific subject. I joked a lot about “sad IKEA movies,” and while it’s a funny joke, I think it aptly connects the common themes of these films to the stifling and cold nature of life in Scandinavia (which I am famously an expert on). In most of these films, there isn’t really an explosive climax—the exceptions being movies like Hour of the Wolf, Through a Glass Darkly, and more (not enough to negate my point, though)—and the conflict comes to more of a verbal head before petering out. 

It’s worth noting again that Bergman often depicts “outsiders,” whether it’s because they are literal circus freaks, mentally ill, or depressed, struggling to fulfill their predetermined (or assigned) roles in life. There’s a whole rollercoaster of complex thoughts and feelings that comes with that—ups and downs of acceptance and rejection—and I think Bergman did a good job of tackling it in in the context of societal confinement and also why, although the endings vary as far as the characters’ feelings on their situation, they mostly end with resignation. There’s no getting off the ride. Until Death comes, that is.

I’m not a psychologist and, again, am not too well-versed in Bergman’s personal life, but my ultimate conclusion from my 2025 dip into his oeuvre is that this man was depressed. He was obviously well-acquainted (and fascinated) with the internal barrenness that comes with depression—the vast territory of unfeeling plains that lay beyond sadness—and its effect on those surrounding someone suffering. More so, he was skilled at portraying that numbness, and that’s also why I think a lot of the movies end on a note of acceptance… like yes, that’s life I guess. Most of the films are simple and small-scale, allowing a lot of room for the (lack of) feeling to breathe. It’s one thing to call the films of a cynic like Lars von Trier bleak, but I think that would be underselling the depth of Bergman's works. Firstly, because the existential dread he captures is so much more intense (and I am a LVT fan, so I’m almost sorry for dragging him into this) and because there’s a bit more hope sprinkled in. Not in every movie I watched, but a lot of them at least acknowledge the existence and possibility of happiness and fulfillment. It doesn’t mean it’s easy—that life is as simple as making socially correct choices like getting married, having children, and having faith in God—but that there is hope and light. 

I have to call myself out on one last thing. Rereading this, I forgot that I explicitly mentioned Winter Light and promised to do a rewatch. Sorry, didn’t get to it! Maybe I’ll throw it on on a dreary day to brighten things up a bit.

P.S. - This post's title was originally a little bit of a pun. Bergman is on the 200 Swedish krona note, one of which I saved from a March 2020 trip to Stockholm. I tried to figure out a fun way to incorporate that into the header image and continue my joke of photoshopping myself into it, but putting my face over his didn't seem right. This is a stupid outtake from me playing around with ideas.

P.P.S. - We need Steven Spielberg on some USD.