Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna)

Director Ingmar Bergman on the set

 

Bergman on the set with actress Ingrid Thulin

 

WINTER LIGHT (Nattvardsgästerna)                      A-                   

Sweden  (81 mi)  1963 d:  Ingmar Bergman

God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Of all the Bergman films, this most reflects his painful childhood upbringing, the son of a strict Lutheran minister, regularly assisting his father in his duties around the church, hearing his pious sermons that promised love and forgiveness, yet once home, he was punished severely for the slightest offenses, a victim of extreme discipline and unbending righteousness, finding himself constantly at odds with his father, quickly realizing the moral hypocrisy of religion, as what one practices is not what one preaches, gravitating towards an illusionary world, that of magic and make believe, staging his own puppet shows for the family before studying theater in college, becoming the youngest theater manager in Europe at the age of 26.  Amongst all his films, this is easily the starkest and most severe, where the embittered tone can be unsettling, spared down to its bare essence as a small-town pastor Tomas Ericsson (aptly named because St. Thomas doubted the resurrection of Christ), played with a stern rigidity by Gunnar Björnstrand, who had a fever from the flu during filming, maximized to great effect by Bergman as he struggles with his loss of faith, preaching to a near empty congregation, believing he is leading a meaningless existence.  In structure and design, the film resembles Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne) (1951), but it lacks the optimism and transcendent quality of a Bresson film, feeling darker and more hopeless, with a deeply brooding Tomas stuck in an existential void.  The second of his Faith Trilogy exploring the silence of God, following Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel) (1961), it’s his most austere film, recalling the spare minimalism of Carl Theodor Dreyer in a film like ORDET (1955), using long takes and close-ups to provide a shocking intimacy, expressing a confessional quality, as if hoping for a redemption that never comes.  Preoccupied by loneliness and human suffering, it is shot by Sven Nykvist in the icy cold of bleak wintry conditions in Northern Sweden, with people isolated and closed off from one another, living in a remote countryside setting revealing vast distances between one another, with Tomas supposedly the connecting tissue holding the social fabric together, yet he doubts his calling, questioning the nature of religion in the modern world, repeating an age-old sacred ritual of communion inside the church that has lost all meaning to the pastor, yet he dutifully performs it over and over again, becoming an exhaustive and painful examination of his holy mission.  Interestingly, the brief conversation between father and son that concludes Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel) becomes the central theme of this film, questioning whether God is love when ordinary lives fail to live up to the sacrificial teachings of Christ, which the modern world has completely abandoned.      

While many find this Bergman’s most perfect film, it’s certainly the shortest and most concise, stripped of all non-essentials, demonstrating an absolute refusal to compromise, yet beautifully written, with the director claiming this as his own personal favorite, while also championed by Andrei Tarkovsky, The Top 10 Favorite Films of Legendary Director Andrei Tarkovsky.  It may exorcise personal demons from his childhood, yet may also be too dour in tone, overly oppressive, with melodramatic excess, with man existing in a spiritual vacuum surrounded by human suffering, caught up in unending individual anguish and despair.  Tomas has an admirer that dotes upon him, Märta (Ingrid Thulin), a schoolteacher who looks after him affectionately as his mistress for the past two years since his wife died five years earlier, yet he keeps his distance, leaving him a shell of his former self, utterly void of love in his own life, yet maintaining his responsibilities, hoping to convey the spirit of Christ’s love in the church.  Despite his doubts, he never betrays his social mission to the community, as if that is the only respite from a life in isolation.  The futility of his position, however, is revealed when one of his parishioners wants spiritual reassurance from their pastor, when a pregnant wife, Karin Persson (Gunnel Lindblom), brings her dejected husband Jonas (Max von Sydow), despondent over the news of possible nuclear annihilation, feeling overwhelmed and powerless to face up to this kind of global tragedy.  While Jonas is quiet and humble, perhaps typical of Nordic individuals bearing their own hardships, instead of understanding his plight, Tomas rambles on about his own pathetic life, not really connecting at all, perhaps making him feel worse, as shortly afterwards someone brings news that Jonas has shot himself with his own rifle, committing suicide.  As Tomas waits for the meeting with Jonas, however, a parallel story develops, as he reads a detailed letter from Märta that mercilessly assails his faults while also professing her love, with Bergman using a novel technique of having Märta face the camera and read the letter aloud in an extended soliloquy that stings with emotional realism.  Wearing no make-up, using no props, this barebones confessional is devastating in its emotional efficiency, bringing him down to size, recognizing him for who he is, warts and all, yet still she dares to enunciate her feelings for him and wants to marry him nonetheless.  It’s a powerful indictment of his failings, coming immediately prior to the visit by Jonas, perhaps influencing his own wounded pride, doing a bit of damage control afterwards, voicing his own fear and uncertainty, speaking entirely about himself, how he became a pastor, and the horrors he witnessed during the Spanish Civil War, struck by a terrifying presence of God’s silence on the battlefield, caught up in his own anguish and despair.  After Jonas leaves, however, suddenly and without a word, Tomas enters the church, but is himself overcome by an awesome power of light beaming through the windows, literally bringing him to his knees, with Märta helping him up and embracing him, but he ignores her.   

Once outdoors in the snow and icy roads, we leave the claustrophobic confinement of the church and feel a renewed sense of nature, as the body of Jonas Persson is lying at the foot of a bridge that crosses the river’s thunderous rapids, revealing a powerful natural presence, with the camera maintaining a healthy distance, even as a vehicle arrives to remove the body.  Curiously, as they drive away, Tomas and Märta stop at an open expanse to allow a train to pass by, where the puffing steam of the engine bears a strange resemblance to Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960), a film about lost souls, yet the freight cars have the appearance of coffins moving rapidly across the empty landscape.  In the noise of the train, the voice of Tomas gets drowned out, a parallel for his inability to transmit a clear message of spirituality to his parishioners, with the church unable to change and adapt to modern circumstances, yet spewing the same scripture, as if by habit, an empty substitute for the real thing.  Among the more unflattering scenes is a total and complete denunciation of Märta by Tomas, refusing to spare her feelings, leaving it perfectly clear that he is repulsed by her craving for closeness, which leaves her horrified and aghast in disbelief, tears streaming down her face in utter humiliation, but Tomas continues to pile it on (much like his father’s merciless reproaches when he was a child), creating a hateful patriarchal portrait of arrogance and brutal oppression, making it all about himself, thinking nothing of others, though he goes through the motions, offering the appearance of caring when in fact he despises others just as much as he despises himself.  This feeling of self-loathing is exactly what Märta was attempting to heal, selflessly reaching out in the spirit of love, in a devotional service to others, but this is precisely what Tomas rejects.  If he can’t experience love, from God or his dead wife, then he doesn’t wish it for others as well, developing a calloused view of humanity, yet he continues to preach the same sermon that he no longer believes.  His inner sanctum has turned to moral rot, displaying no compassion whatsoever, stuck in an abyss of emptiness where love and forgiveness once prevailed.  Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the film is not the sickly Tomas, but the other secondary characters, as we feel for Märta’s rude treatment, as well as Jonas and his unspeakable pain, for Karin Persson raising a family alone, but also for Algot (Allan Edwall), a deformed hunchback who helps around the church, lighting the candles, ringing the church bells, which he does purely out of devotional belief.  Unlike Tomas, he continues to have faith, yet questions other aspects of Christ’s journey that matter to him, which become the central focus near the end, offering all manner of relevant insight into Christ’s suffering, which is something he could identify with as a human living with unbearable pain.  What’s remarkable are the human acts of compassion taken for granted, as they’re not offered out of some religious conviction, but simple human kindness.  Märta is a professed atheist, yet understands the importance of love, even if Tomas rebuffs her.  As if out of nowhere, Algot becomes the spiritual conscience of the film, chatting away endlessly, yet magnificently, though he hasn’t a clue the greater implications his words have in the film, as for him it’s all in a day’s labor, where he’s simply espousing what’s on his mind.  But for viewers, his knowledge and humble wisdom are urgently compelling, as he’s speaking of the divine.  Though Tomas is experiencing an existential crisis of faith, having lost contact with all spiritual meaning, he carries out the church rituals anyway, performing meaningless gestures, a pathetic display of what the church has become. 

Army of Shadows (L’Armée des ombres)

ARMY OF SHADOWS (L’Armée des ombres)               A                    

France  Italy  (145 mi)  1969  d:  Jean-Pierre Melville    

A densely layered, profound, and meticulously paced, perfectly edited epic of the French resistance, much in the intense and measured manner of Bresson’s A Man Escaped (Un Condamné à Mort s'est échappé) (1956), where attention to detail is exceptional, revealing segment after segment of small intimate moments critical in several resistance fighter’s lives, where each decision manifests itself through the enormous consequences of their acts, eventually taking a wearying toll on the participants, always outnumbered, always targeted by the authorities, providing an authentically realistic view of the startling subject matter, facing a moral dilemma every day of having to accomplish the impossible.  Perhaps also a predecessor to the style of the Dardenne brothers, which through its rhythmic display of the smallest detail of daily routine, reveals an outstanding characterization of a larger picture.  This film feels extremely personal, as if the filmmaker has already been there, as each perfectly crafted image carries the weight of those who actually walked in those shoes, a weight that feels devastatingly human.  The film is actually based on a book by Joseph Kessel, who also wrote of the secret peculiar Parisian love lives in Belle de Jour, so his visualization of the material has been beautifully expressed by both Buñuel and now Melville.  The writer and the filmmaker were also both active members in the French resistance, so this is an extremely personalized collaboration. 

The film opens with a crane shot offering an extraordinary high overview of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, a superb monument representing all that is French, as German troops methodically march unimpeded down the Champs-Elysees. The story then follows the hidden lives of the French resistance, operating an underground network that distributed information, weapons, manpower, as well as an ever-changing strategy to counteract the effect of the Nazi’s occupation throughout France.  Their strategy worked only so long as they remained anonymous, as once they were detected, they were of no further use to the overall operations, as they drew a police presence wherever they went.  This film examines several people who contributed, as if the revelations of their work could leave with us an imprint of an organization that accomplished so much, yet with devastating impact, as all the participants shown in the film eventually lost their lives, thus the name for the title of the film.  But the film highlights their lives instead of their deaths.  Despite carrying a nagging anxiety that every day they may be captured and interrogated, leading to torture or the firing squad, the film does an excellent job establishing the overall mood of dread and despair which filled their every waking thought, opening with the transport of a prisoner, Lino Ventura, who we follow throughout the film, to a prison camp, to his plans for an escape, but before he could enact them, he is subsequently transported to Gestapo headquarters, where he again maneuvers a dazzling escape with a fellow prisoner, something improvised on the spur of the moment, which reveals an acute mentality of the persons involved, drawing us into their unbelievably intense survivalist mode.  

Not since Bertolucci’s The Conformist (Il Conformista) (1970) has so much psychological internalized anguish transpired while riding in vintage black cars, where much of the film is shot in darkness, traveling country roads in the wee hours of the morning, carrying out their operations under the cover of night as much as possible to avoid detection.  Especially memorable are the silhouetted outline of bare trees against the blue morning sky, or giant puddles around the countryside farmhouses, or the stunning moonlight submarine rendezvous, transporting the operations chief from France to England to visit De Gaulle, where in the middle of an air raid, a man steps inside a doorway where soldiers and their girls are dancing to music in a basement bar, seemingly oblivious to the world outside.  At one moment, as a man is about to face a firing squad, several of these kinds of images appear in his mind.  Once he makes a rather miraculous escape, which brought a few snickers from the audience, as this was truly incredulous, yet what transpires afterwards is thoroughly entrenched in the most demoralizing futility, as the man who was literally seconds from death is re-created, almost from the womb, with his soul so darkly entrenched in his own powerlessness, expressed in an extended period of near total blackness and isolation, yet he has little choice but to carry on, even when he realizes the outcome before it ever happens.  Due to the extreme secrecy of their mission, many resistance fighters die under false names, their sacrifices never known.  Two brothers in the film never discover that they are both in the resistance, and their meeting together is exquisite, one a former gourmet who must now content himself with listening to Beethoven, or so it seems, as he is actually the head of the resistance, while his brother dies anonymously in a Nazi prison.

Near the end of the film, there is an overwhelming sense of dread undermining their thoughts.  Despite the best minds and the best of intentions, how can they avoid being broken?  They face an impossible psychological dilemma where they are each so peculiarly isolated and alone, the unique nature of their mission so dangerous, that the likelihood to succeed all but tempts suicide, as in their lives, torture followed by an agonizing death becomes inevitable.  Jonathan Rosenbaum claims it’s a unique saga that haunts with echoes of the guilt and defeatism of Holocaust victims.  Without the hindsight of history, not knowing if they would succeed or fail, the sense of despair is everywhere, as there is so little they seem to be able to do to counter the overwhelming wave of superior forces, yet they are driven anyway, despite the knowledge that all around them their fellow resistance fighters are being rounded up and killed, leaving them to deal with nothing less than the impossible, including the killing of their own, sometimes with their bare hands, chilling images that leave the audience emotionally depleted and devastated.  Simone Signoret plays one of the most determined in the movement, and the dilemma she faces, that the organization faces, is simply unthinkable, yet her fate and the fate of others is calmly presented here without a trace of artifice.  Throughout this film, lives are imprinted in our memories due to the exquisite recreation of their extraordinary efforts under extreme duress.  Perhaps knowing the inevitable gave these individuals a unique courage to face death with such heroic stoicism.  It is without doubt a rare privilege to experience such deeply affecting human intimacy.