Day 98: Cries and Whispers (1972)
Returning to the “Criterion Summer,” Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman delivers ”Cries and Whispers,” a film that looks upon death, suffering, and how all those involved react to the mortality in themselves and those they love. A deeply moving film, it is as disturbing and raw as it is quiet and beautiful and this fusion of contrasts are used with amazing visual technique to better lay down its message of man’s confrontation with death and the slow, sometimes painful, process it brings forth.
In “Cries and Whispers,” sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) are brought together at the family mansion to watch over the deathbed of their other sister Agnes (Harriet Andersson), who is riddled with excruciating cancer. Though both Maria and Karin feel it appropriate to be at the side of their dying sister, both feel distant and awkward with each other and with this personification of death that they once treated as family.
Completely self-absorbed, Maria spends her days thinking about her promiscuous lifestyle and how it eventually cost her the marriage she once had. Karin, as well, is too preoccupied to really take care of Agnes and spends her time struggling with her desire for sexual gratification and self harm. In fact, the only person who truly aids Agnes in her passage towards death is Anna (Kari Sylwan), a deeply religious maid, who lost her own daughter many years ago but has come to terms with the concept of death. Through her we are able to witness comfort and grace amongst Maria and Karin’s jealousy, manipulation, and selfishness, but it is Agnes herself who will help them all, in the end, better understand what we all must eventually come to grips with- our own demise.
A film of deep meaning and conviction, “Cries and Whispers” is a perfect example of how cinema can visually tell a story like no other. While, for much of his career, director Ingmar Bergman concentrated and preferred black and white for his films, “Cries and Whispers” is not his first in color but possibly his greatest. Fully using the capabilities of a color palette and mixing it with the cinematography of Sven Nykvist, he uses the blacks and whites found in the sister’s mansion and puts them up against a deep and defining red, which, when it shows up, draws the eye and elicits emotion immediately.
It is this red that not only marks many significant scenes in the film but also what Bergman think upon matters of the soul. In his book “Images,” he says, “All my films can be thought of in terms of black and white, except for “Cries and Whispers.” In the screenplay, it says that red represents for me the interior of the soul. When I was a child, I imagined the soul to be a dragon, a shadow floating in the air like blue smoke—a huge winged creature, half bird, half fish. But inside the dragon, everything was red.” With this in mind, Bergman purposefully uses this color in matters of the soul. Whether that be in the crimson walls and floors of the mansion that seems to entomb Agnes and trap her sisters or the blood the Karin spills from her own body to gain sexual satisfaction and punishment for her guilt, Bergman makes each use or absence of color count.
Gaining cinematographer Sven Nykvist an Academy Award for his work, “Cries and Whispers” is now a stable of art-house cinema and a beautifully filmed story about the process of death and our process of accepting its eventual outcome.
To learn more about “Cries and Whispers,” check out Criterion’s page here.
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