THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY Movie Review

Sasom I En Spegel

The first in a series of Ingmar Bergman films known as his religious or “crisis of faith” trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly is the story of Karin (Harriet Andersson), a young woman who has read in her psychologist father's journal his diagnosis of her incurable schizophrenia. Karin's husband (Max von Sydow) is unable to help her as her hallucinations accelerate, but the consolation Karin finds in her closeness to her young brother becomes incestuous, sending her over the precipice of sanity and into a terrifying vision of a monstrous God. That vision is all the more horrifying because we experience it only in Karin's description and in the look on her face, allowing us to later recall having seen a specific image, but it's one that we supply. One of the most painful and unsparing visions of madness ever put on film, Bergman's film is nevertheless one of his most beautiful and insightful. The cast is extraordinary, particularly Andersson as Karin, Lars Passgard as her confused brother, and the young Max von Sydow as Karin's tortured, helpless husband. Academy Award, Best Foreign Language Film.

NEXT STOP … Winter Light, The Silence, The Rapture

1961 91m/B SW Harriet Andersson, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Lars Passgard; D: Ingmar Bergman; W: Ingmar Bergman; C: Sven Nykvist. Academy Awards ‘61: Best Foreign Film; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘62: Best Story & Screenplay. VHS NOS, NLC