Trespassing Bergman (2013)

In the turbulent waves off the coast of Sweden rests the small island of Fårö, a patch of land that has been the source of constant discussions amongst film buffs and connoisseurs of cinema. On its shores is, we soon discover, the house that Ingmar Bergman called home during the last decades of his life, though few knew where it stood; until his death, its whereabouts remained the closely guarded secret of nearby locals, who feared their most treasured (and secretive) icon would have his privacy undermined by opportunists eager to exploit it. But now the secret has emerged, and film directors far and wide have an awakened interest to wander into the private rooms of his compound, no doubt to gain a sense of his profound essence. Was his vehement privacy as fascinating as his immense body of work, or is there a far more profound undercurrent driving these men and women towards the doorstep of their secretive teacher? When the great Alejandro González Iñárritu wanders into a meeting room and is nearly driven to tears by the power of the moment, it serves to anchor the sentiment of his defining thought: “If cinema were a religion, this would be Mecca, or the Vatican.”

Lessons from Criterion:"The Magician" by Ingmar Bergman

A fair selection of identities in the Ingmar Bergman canon serve as metaphorical projections of the director’s own inner workings, but none confront his thinking as directly as Dr. Vogler does in his mysterious “The Magician.” The great French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, a champion of those cathartic sensibilities, once referred to it as his “first self-portrait,” and perhaps in that statement it is apropos to consider the central implication in greater context. While the emerging artists of international cinema were still discovering their identity in the 1950s, their endeavors reflected a negation of the melodramatic tendencies of Hollywood, and instead sought to challenge the sweeping deceptions by telling stories that existed close to their eager (and often weathered) hearts. The examples left behind by Ozu, Clouzot, Kurosawa, Goddard, Fellini and even Truffaut were the embodiment of that sentiment, an anchoring dose of evidence in perpetuating the concept of auteur theory. But by the time Bergman got involved in the movement, it was no longer just a matter of recognizing those sentiments in a mere yarn; to him, they had to be visualized in the sincere faces of his actors, all of whom didn’t so much occupy space in a narrative as they exemplified a personal thesis within the framework of his meditative thought process.

Lessons from Criterion:"Cries and Whispers" by Ingmar Bergman

Three sisters, each separated by different stages of emotional weathering, inhabit a countryside manor like rats quietly feasting on each other’s insecurities. One of them is terminally ill and on the razor’s edge of mortality; the other two have arrived from afar to offer care in her dark and painful final days. One looks askance at emotional displays like a strange and horrifying concept; the other, whose piercing blue eyes overflow with vague desires, shrinks to obscurity in the face of truth. Their lives are framed by the presence of a sole but knowing housekeeper, a frumpy woman whose own loss of a young child has left her broken but nurturing. In an important scene, she comes to the call of the dying woman, opens her shirt and allows her to rest her head on her warm bosom for physical comfort. Their stories intertwine in a narrative soaked in muted desperation, and the deep red interiors of their home act as an organism of imprisonment. What cauterizes their souls and robs them of empathy? And when the darkest of moments come to pass, will they oppose the barriers holding them away from the embrace of familial instinct, or become enveloped in their own shame?

Lessons from Criterion:"The Seventh Seal" by Ingmar Bergman

A sobering awareness rushes across the face of Antonius Block as the waves of the ocean crash on his beach like relentless reminders of a bleak reality. His eyes glance suspiciously to a vision beyond his comprehension: a man in a hood who observes the spot at which he rests, his face grimly sinking into the visage of a skull, and his dark robes all too eager to invite one into an unknown fate. There is no moment of reaction, only short exchanges. “Who are you?” he asks. “I am Death,” the figure responds. “Have you come for me?” “I have long been at your side.”  The dance of banter leads to an indomitable wager: Antonius and Death will engage each other in a game of chess, one in which the outcome will offer the determined knight reprieve from his stalker’s grim clutches, or to mortal conclusion. But in all things for this simple being of a thousand internal struggles, is the final destination really relevant if any of the answers he has agonizingly pursued throughout the painful trek of his life do not come?