Cries and Whispers
Ingmar Bergman explained the use of the color red in this film: "'Cries and Whispers' is an exploration of the soul, and ever since childhood, I have imagined the soul to be a damp membrane in varying shades of red.",When Anna wakes up Maria late at night, Maria follows her out of the room barefoot. After they get Karin, Maria has slippers on in the next shot.,Anna: [reading Agnes' journal entry] "Wednesday, the third of September. A chill in the air tells of autumn's approach, but the days are still lovely and mild. My sisters, Karin and Maria, have come to see me. It's wonderful to be together again like in the old days. I'm feeling much better. We were even able to take a stroll together. It was a wonderful experience, especially for me, since I haven't been outdoors for so long. We suddenly began to laugh and run toward the old swing that we hadn't used since we were children. We sat in it like three good little sisters and Anna pushed us, slowly and gently. All my aches and pains were gone. The people I'm most fond of in all the world were with me. I could hear them chatting around me. I could feel the presence of their bodies, the warmth of their hands. I wanted to cling to that moment, and I thought, "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection and I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much.",Featured in Liv Ullmann scener fra et liv (1997),Suite No. 5 for solo Cello in C Minor, 4th mvt 'Sarabande'
by Johann Sebastian Bach
Played by Pierre Fournier,To see Liv Ullmann, whose nature is so warm and natural, play a role in which her warmth is superficial and fraudulent, is a little offsetting; yet, great actress that she is, she pulls it off, so that if I had never seen her before, I would believe she was that way.

"Cries and Whispers," much ballyhooed, I recall, when it appeared, seems too psychoanalytically intense today; dark and mysterious, beautifully filmed in an intense red-yes, very striking against the northern cold, but somehow not entirely convincing. The people are cynically presented as tortured animals caring only for themselves, without a scrap of genuine feeling for others. Anna, the maid, is the exception, so that she may serve as a foil for the rest of them.

Harriet Andersson gives a striking performance as Agnes who is dying of cancer. I have seen what she portrays, and can tell you she expressed it in all its horror and hopelessness. Ullmann plays Maria, one of her sisters who touches others easily, but without real feeling, so that the touches mean nothing. For those who grew up cinematically during the seventies, she was a great, expressive, sensual, flawless star of the screen, one of Ingmar Bergman's jewels. Bergman himself of course was already a legend by the time this film was made, a great master who did what he wanted and what he felt, yet never lost sight of the audience. What he seems to be saying here is we are desperate creatures living a cold and ultimately empty existence. The ending clip seems an after thought that seeks our redemption, but it arrives too little too late. We are lost.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!),