Word: bergman
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...Bergman is not this time adapting his vision to theatrical convention: the characters are conceived philosophically and each is given a flashback that shows them confronting the one thing they all share--loneliness. We interpret the characters' very limited present-tense actions with that information; and when each expresses an insufficient response toward Agnes's death, we realize it is because they have only the barest grip on life...
Aside from lovers and husbands, the only visitor to the house is the minister who comes to pray at Agnes's deathbed. Bergman admires the minister's recognition of the need for moral faith, and his sincerity and fervor; but his unfolding of a stern Calvinist credo becomes pathetic, particularly as he begins to cry, and tells the sisters that Agnes's faith was stronger than his own. When he leaves with his androgynous layers-out, we are made sharply aware that, for all its period trappings, this is a story about Western man caught in a post-Christian world...
...Other." But the film is interested not in these women's emotion, but the intelligence and intuitions which direct these emotions. The case can be made much more purely with women because they are so human, and here are divorced from any encounter with external social conflicts. Bergman, in fact, makes a far more subtle dig at the bourgeois than Kael gives him credit for: the men are cartoon figures, unable to bring their families any ordering values from their work. Beyond that, even after the social revolution, we will all have to face the problems these sisters encounter...
...usual, Bergman includes references to his own previous works--e.g., Maria and her husband plan to visit the Egermans, the eminently bourgeois family of Passion of Anna. Also to be expected are the wonderful Sven Nykvist photography, the clever color design (red for lust and guilt, white for innocence, black for death) and the impeccable performances. But Bergman's characteristic flaws are present as well. Occasionally, a scene becomes annoyingly stylized: Karin looks at that piece of glass for what seems like a full five minutes, and the talk in which she and Maria finally commit themselves is smothered...
...Bergman's fine structure and masterful direction of visuals and actors finally overcomes his minor clumsiness. Now his main challenge is philosophic. He must commit himself to an even harder task than the one he has set himself here. He must start to give us his solutions to problems of these characters' lives...