Viskingar och rop = Cries and whispers

Two sisters, Maria and Karin, tend their sister, Agnes, dying of cancer, in the family mansion. Over the course of the film the three sisters and the family maid, Anna, examine their past, lamenting dark and tumultuous moments. Maria is a self-centred, vain, exquisite beauty, with a shallow perspective; Karin, bitter and frigid has a history of self-mutilation and contemplates suicide; Agnes, in immense pain, is comforted by Anna the fatalistic family retainer. Bergman artfully explores the inner life of the women, detailing the history of their connectedness yet isolation from each other. With flashbacks and minimal dialogue Bergman lays out the emotional landscape of this family’s fragile bonds that strain under the imminent death of one. Clocks are a repeated motif for the passage of time, and a reminder of the women’s mortality; sound and colour play an important part in the narrative with red (wine, walls, curtains) representing the soul’s interior. Set in the late 1800s, ‘Cries and Whispers’ is an intense, disturbing and powerful family drama about repression, spirituality, sexual passion, hatred and death.

Credits: Producer, director, writer, Ingmar Bergman ; photography, Sven Nykvist ; editing, Siv Lundgren.
Cast: Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Henning Moritzen.