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Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman - 1972)

(27/04/2005)

Is this Bergman's finest film?

It is the story of three sisters, and a servant of the family.

One of the sisters is dying, apparently from cancer of some kind. Her suffering and her death serve as a mirror for the other characters, revealing the degree to which they have lost their humanity, their capacity for compassion.

Just as death is a mirror for the dying, it becomes a mirror for those close to the dying person. To die is to come face to face with yourself, and if you basically like yourself, then to approach death is to come home. If not - if you have been running away from yourself for years - then death is the ultimate failure because there is nowhere to run anymore - nowhere to hide - and all the feelings you have been avoiding come crashing in on you all at once and the experience will tend to be overwhelmingly distressing. This is also true of the two women who are 'caring' for their dying sister. In different ways they are both emotionally cripppled and fail their sister in her hour of greatest need, as well as further disintegrating themselves. The servant by contrast retains her humanity and manages to give the dying woman what she really needs.

What does the dying woman need after all? Not so much - mainly to not be abandoned - to be accepted in her pain - to not be left - to be accompanied in her journey into death as far as it is possible for the living to do so. To be sent on alone into death of course - but only because of an inability to follow - not because of an unwillingness to follow - not from disgust or fear.

The way the sisters are thrown back on their inadequate inner resources causes the viewer to also review his own self. In this way the film becomes a mirror for the viewer. What will happen when I die? Who will be there for me? Who do I want to be there? Who do I really trust? And faced with the death of those I love, will I prove strong enough? Will my love prove to be real and deep, or will it crumble? Is it just an idea of love? I want to love, but am I constitutionally capable of remaining loving when it really counts? Will I in the end betray those I love through weakness and fear? And if that is the case, can I change? How can I change? Is it too late already?

Too many of us are broken. We gave up on ourselves long ago. We may have developed strategies to cope and to compensate for this inner fragmentation, but we know in our heart of hearts that all those strategies will fall apart in the end - and that knowledge is a source of great suffering - a suffering worse than pain itself. Indeed when the pain which has been feared for decades finally arrives, we may experience a certain degree of relief.

Franz Kafka wrote, "You can hold yourself back from the suffering of this world. That is something you are free to do, and it accords with your nature, but perhaps that very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid." He is right. It's true. But it's not that simple. Over the years, the habit of 'holding back' becomes ingrained in the character and cannot be overcome all at once, any more than a couch potato can suddenly jump up and run a marathon. For many of us it is just too late. We are condemned to betray ourselves and those who rely on us. Is there time to change? There is no way of knowing for sure. In the face of that not knowing, a choice must be made.



Copyright © 2005 Paul Mackilligin