Movie Masterworks

“We have won, and we shall live not to destroy, but to build a new life!”

Synopsis: Veronica and Boris are blissfully in love, until the eruption of World War II tears them apart. Boris is sent to the front lines…and then communication stops. Meanwhile, Veronica tries to ward off spiritual numbness while Boris’ draft-dodging cousin makes increasingly forceful overtures. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, “The Cranes Are Flying” is a superbly crafted drama, bolstered by stunning cinematography and impassioned performances.

Critique: When you know that a film is “historically significant,” it’s easy to treat it like an antique teddy bear: something to be appreciated from a distance, but certainly not embraced. Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying was a landmark film in the history of post-Stalin Russian cinema, a Cannes Palme d’Or winner and a technically astonishing piece of filmmaking, but it isn’t something to watch just because it’s good for you. Consider the number of classic war movies in film history, then consider this: The Cranes Are Flying ranks among the best war movies ever made.

Like most great films, this one is at its heart a love story. In the spring of 1941, Boris (Alexei Batalov) and Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova) bask in the glow of their young love and their plans to marry. But war intervenes, and after the German invasion of Russia, Boris volunteers to go to the front. That leaves Veronica alone at home, waiting for letters from Boris that never come and fending off the advances of Boris’s draft-dodging cousin Mark (Alexander Shvorin).

The Cranes Are Flying appeared at a time when Soviet films were finally being allowed to explore the war without obvious jingoism, and you can feel the sense of liberation in virtually every frame. When the intelligent Boris enlists, the response from his family is not encouragement, but disbelief that he didn’t attempt to gain one of the draft exemptions available to the most talented. A rote speech of patriotic support for Boris from two young girls gets cut off as mere babble by Boris’ surgeon father (Vasily Merkuryev), and a government worker’s announcement about the joy of victory is juxtaposed with one grieving face. Though Kalatozov acknowledges the heroism of Russian soldiers, he refuses to ignore personal tragedy as legitimate, even in the face of global conflict.

He does so largely through a beautiful performance by Samoilova as the sexy, intense Veronica. In the early scenes with Boris, her playful tug of war with a blanket intended to block out a window establishes the affection between them with remarkable economy. Her face grounds the story as she reacts to a diatribe against faithless women, and as she falls into despair over whether Boris will ever return. Though Kalatozov goes to the battleground for one key segment of the film, his interest lies mostly with those left behind and damaged by war indirectly. The emotional force of Samoilova’s acting makes that pain as real as a gunshot.

It would be easy to spend hours dissecting Kalatozov’s powerful individual sequences as textbook examples of visual filmmaking: a collage of farewells to soldiers at a train station; Veronica’s frantic run to her parents’ apartment after an air raid; Boris’ heart-breaking hallucinatory vision of his wedding day with Veronica; Veronica staring off-screen while reading a letter from Boris, his voice-over sending the words directly into her soul. But the virtuoso moments come together for something riveting and completely human. It’s the kind of humanity you can’t just nod to respectfully as it sits in a museum case. You are compelled to throw your arms around it.

- By Scott Renshaw, Apollo Guide

My Thoughts: I couldn’t get over the gorgeous cinematography of “Cranes Are Flying.” Scene after scene comes alive with panoramic cranes, closeups, deep focus shots, wide angle perspectives, hand held camera, super imposed images… all masterfully executed. Tatiana Samoilova’s personality shines through in every scene and her performance carries us with her throughout the entire film. I wish they still made movies like this!

“A stray dog becomes a mad dog.”

Critique: Stray Dog (1949), Kurosawa’s ninth film, is generally considered his first masterpiece, or at least the first for which the term can be reasonably argued. And no wonder. All the elements that would distinguish his later work are in place. There’s the epic sweep, in which a very personal story focusing on a troubled individual(s) is told against a grand background, in this case the panorama of a defeated and humiliated occupied Japan. Dostoyevskian themes and motifs — humanism, class conflict, masculine pain and guilt, doppelgangers — abound. There are stellar performances throughout, including the first great coupling of Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura (in their fourth appearance together in a Kurosawa film). And of course the film’s elaborate visuals, formal complexities, and dramatic pacing announce a career that would be internationally acclaimed with Rashomon just a year later. If he misjudges or overdoes a few of the effects, as I believe he does, these are minor failures in a generally masterful work.

In interviews, Kurosawa claimed several inspirations for Stray Dog, most importantly Jules Dassin’s The Naked City (1948) with its realist thrust and the novels of Georges Simenon for their meticulous proceduralism. That said, the film is not a whodunit in any real sense. It’s beholden neither to the strict realism of Dassin nor to the mechanical policier approach of Simenon. Kurosawa’s canvas is ultimately larger than its influences, exploring not just the existential angst of a policeman whose stolen gun is being used in a series of terrible crimes, but also the epic hell of postwar Japanese society.

The film begins in July with a seemingly trivial tragedy. Rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has had his gun stolen in a hot, crowded bus. (Guns were, of course, scarce in postwar Japan, available mainly to police and on the black market, so this is a much bigger deal than it might seem.) Murakami is unable to catch the thief despite an exhausting chase, and he returns to the station humiliated and ready to resign. Denied this penance, he continues the search, checking records, discovering suspects, and in a wonderful sequence that begins the film’s tour of postwar Tokyo, following a hardboiled female criminal through the homely housing of Tokyo in hopes of harassing her into a confession. This sequence ends in one of the director’s trademark magical moments when she relaxes and tells Murakami some of what she knows, stretching back to gaze wonderingly at the night sky. It also presages the film’s bravura 8-1/2 minute survey of the slums and black markets of Tokyo.

This sequence, shot by Inoshiro Honda of Godzilla fame, is like an anti-travelogue for a ruined city. Honda had to shoot in secret, as these were actual black markets full of criminals, whores, vagrants, and other social cast-offs. The camera unflinchingly shows the crush of humanity — lines of dirty urchins; flophouses crammed with the poor; ex-soldiers standing idly on the streets; furtive transactions; all set against a backdrop of clogged, grimy alleys in Tokyo’s killing summer heat. Everything that once-proud, orderly Japanese society had become by this time is on display here in tableaux that are echoed throughout the film, and offer a key motivation for the crimes of the gun-thief.

Murakami’s tormented journey into these “lower depths” — his disguise as a “desperate soldier” becomes increasingly real — is crucial to understanding the world the film is trying to create and to Murakami’s psychology. His search for the missing gun, an emblem of his (and presumably Japan’s) lost power, becomes a mania, and he himself becomes linked both in his own mind and by the gun with the criminal who is using it to rob and kill. In a classic doppelganger trope, both the thief, Yusa (Isao Kimura), and Murakami were soldiers; both had their knapsacks stolen on the train that brought them from the war to their home. But Yusa, we eventually are told, “chose” a life of crime, while Murakami, faced with the same dismal society that could not assimilate its soldiers, chose to become a detective. Yet the film takes pains to show that Yusa’s path was inevitable, the result of social forces that could not be overcome. Murakami was one of the lucky few to get a job of any kind at a time when American control was iron.

Murakami’s progress in locating the elusive Yusa starts in earnest when he’s assigned to a more seasoned inspector, Sato (Takashi Shimura), who begins the dual process of helping Murakami find the thief and recover the gun, and helping the younger man mature as a detective and a human being. Their interplay, the classic simpatico/clash between the thoughtful, mature teacher and the rash, obsessive youth, is one of the pleasures of Stray Dog. Takashi Shimura was never better, capturing his character in simple gestures like wiping his arms, or gazing at Mifune with the indulgence of a loving father. They also share one of the film’s loveliest moments when, from behind a delicate gauzy curtain, they watch Sato’s children sleeping — a quiet reminder that there is as always a future, and it may be different.

That future depends, it seems, on eradicating the rogue element in Japanese society represented by Murakami’s thief, the unassimilable soldier who fought a failed war. Kurosawa doesn’t neglect the technical aspects of this process, though they’re always secondary to the epic and psychological elements. There are classic scenes of ballistics analysis that recall the U.S. “docu noirs” of the late 1940s, and a “bullet countdown” motif — Murakami’s gun had all seven bullets when stolen, and he nervously counts them down as each new crime is revealed. But more important here is the rookie cop’s slow unraveling as he closes in on Yusa. His adoption of a soldier’s guise gives the usually scrubbed detective a much grungier look, making him seem less an interloper than an authentic member of the poverty-choked netherworld he’s infiltrating in his search for the gun.

The search brings him to his nemesis’ girlfriend, Harumi (Keiko Awaji). The film uses one of their scenes together to brilliantly play the class card. Harumi, like many Japanese women at the time, had one foot in the criminal world as a means of survival. In an occupied country this was crucial. One of the products of this alliance is a hopelessly expensive dress Yusa bought her, after seeing her admire it in a shop. In a scene at once magical and horrific, she puts on the dress and twirls through a shadow-drenched room reminiscent of a shadow-swathed Gothic castle chamber, screaming “I’m happy!” Murakami’s assumptions about free will (he “chose” his job while Yusa “chose” to be a criminal) are challenged by this vivid act. Is Harumi’s possession of the dress really a crime? Is Yusa a criminal for stealing the money to buy it for her? How many others don’t have what the want or need? The answers aren’t as easy now for Murakami, and the pressure shows in what looks like a state of barely controlled hysteria that increasingly marks him.

Yusa, though not seen entirely until the film’s last few minutes, is gradually revealed in a kind of off-screen portrait that humanizes him, in the process linking him closer to Murakami. Both are seen as nervous, emotional, almost hysterical men. Yusa’s mother tells the detective, “I found him sitting here in the dark, crying…” Harumi describes his anguish at her desire for the dress, and the viewer is left to fill in the emotions Yusa must have felt between seeing her and the dress, and his purchase of it a week later with stolen money. The fateful meeting between Yusa and Murakami is the literal high point of the film, but perhaps represents an overreaching by Kurosawa. Yusa’s breakdown is a marvel to behold, but the oppositional images in this sequence, flowers and butterflies contrasted with bullets and bruises, hammer the viewer and threaten to overwhelm the emotions. Kurosawa’s operatic tendencies serve most of the film, but look out of place in the crucial meeting of these enemies who are so much alike. What saves the scene are a fine performance by Kimura in a very brief role, and superb work throughout by Mifune, who, only 29 here, established himself as one of the screen’s most accomplished actors.

- Gary Morris Images Journal

My Thoughts: Unfortunetly, “Stay Dog” is one of Kurosawa’s lesser known masterworks. It’s one of the best crime films made, along with “M” and Kurosawa’s own “High Low.” I really enjoy seeing the humanity Kurosawa instills in his chracters. It gives them great depth and makes them far more interesting people. Fittingly, I watched this film on a 100 degree day.

“Strangers bring flowers to his grave.”

Synopsis: Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is granted a visit with his mother after he singlehandedly fends off two enemy tanks. As he journeys home, Alyosha encounters the devastation of his war-torn country, witnesses glimmers of hope among the people, and falls in love. With its poetic visual imagery, Grigori Chukhrai’s Ballad of a Soldier is an unconventional meditation on the effects of war, and a milestone in Russian cinema.

Critique: We are told at the outset that Alyosha is killed at the front, never to return to his mother, to Shura, or to anyone else again. Ballad of a Soldier’s conclusion strikes a single, clear tone with one of the most poignant of wartime questions — what if? What if Alyosha, decent and honorable and deserving of a full life, had not died in the war? What could he, and by extension some 20 million Alyoshas, have become? What could this everyday hero have contributed if he’d been allowed to fulfill his promise? Ballad doesn’t answer the question. Instead it tells us that Alyosha dies a “simple Russian soldier” (a citizen of a country, not an ideology) because he never had the time or opportunity to be anything else.

Technically rich yet possessing a refining simplicity, Ballad of a Soldier is a quietly powerful work that could have diminished into soapy melodrama or government-stamped rhetoric. Instead, director/co-writer Grigori Chukhrai delivered a personal ode, one indeed as emotive and straight-shooting as a ballad, to his own postwar generation. He did so with then-distinctive attention to varying responses war brings out in individual people, with moments of unmistakable (and now sweetly chaste) sexual heat, and without resorting to the clichés, stilted symbols, or pompous phraseology that did so much harm to Soviet cinema. If handsome, virtuous Alyosha is an idealized emblem of the Soviet character, it’s to the degree that, say, Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne personified America’s images of itself. Ballad is artful without being at all inaccessible, and every element — cinematography, sound, and especially the performances of the two extraordinary actors playing Alyosha and Shura — is as energetic and sharply honed as any of the best Hollywood or Western European product.

During the early ’60s, when Kruschev supported a brief thaw in Cold War tensions, Ballad triumphantly toured the international festival circuit. It was (and is) hailed as a gem-like representative of the period’s “new Soviet cinema,” and for Russians it became one of their most beloved movies while also earning awards in Cannes, San Francisco, London, Tehran, and Milan before winning the Lenin Prize at home. In 1962 it was Oscar-nominated for Best Writing (Story and Screenplay) and won the British Academy Award for Best Film From Any Source. Our vantage-point several decades later allows us a broader view of Ballad’s resonant theme. What might writer-director Grigori Chukhrai or the previously unknown acting students — Zhanna Prokhorenko (who’s as lovely and soulful as Ingrid Bergman in her prime) and Vladimir Ivashov (one of the best leading men Hollywood never had) — have achieved if politics and circumstances had permitted greater artistic back-and-forth between the U.S. and Soviet film industries? There’s of course no answer for that, though this release of Ballad of a Soldier hints at what might have been.

— Mark Bourne, The DVD Journal

My Thoughts: What a find this movie was! I loved Alyosha’s sense of honor that he touches everyone he mets on his journey with. In the end, though he was a hero soldier, it was his humanity that made him revered in his short life. The movie culminates in a wonderful scene permeated by a powerful silence. Also noteworthy was the beautiful cinematography.

“You know, a bad doctor can kill you. I won’t kill you, but I might break a couple of arms or legs.”

Synopsis: A testament to the goodness of humankind, Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Red Beard’ chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director. Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa, gives a powerhouse performance as the dignified yet empathic director who guides his pupil to maturity, teaching the embittered intern to appreciate the lives of his destitute patients. Perfectly capturing the look and feel of 19th-century Japan, Kurosawa weaves a fascinating tapestry of time, place, and emotion.

Critique: There are few films that reach as deeply as this one into the realms of the human condition, including despair and caring. At one level, the film is about the nature of medical care, but, in the nineteenth century, medical care was not materially different than the broader term, “caring.” Medicine had few scientifically validated treatments to offer and virtually no capacity to cure ailments. Red Beard knows that his business is as much about giving hope and fighting poverty as it is about disease: “Medical science doesn’t know everything. We know the symptoms and how things go. We can only fight poverty and ignorance, and cover up what we don’t know. If it weren’t for poverty, half of these people wouldn’t be sick.” Fields like psychology and social services didn’t exist, at the time, so medicine encompassed most of what is now divided among many different so-called “helping professions.” Medicine has changed both for better and for worse. On the positive side, doctors now have a much broader arsenal of efficacious interventions for many kinds of disease. On the downside, many physicians have lost the holistic orientation and “bedside manner” that Red Beard embodies and which Yasumoto is beginning to appreciate. Beyond that, the film’s other specific themes are those listed above as the seven lessons learned by Yasumoto. The one about the value of life residing in loving and caring for others is perhaps most central.

The script of Red Beard provides both its greatest strengths and its only significant weaknesses. The general contours of the story were based on a novel by Shugoro Yamamoto, called Red Beard. Shugoro’s writings had also provided the main plot elements for Sanjuro. Kurosawa wrote the screenplay for Red Beard himself, incorporating additional elements from Dostoevsky’s The Insulted and the Injured, as well as some of his own experiences. The story takes place mainly at the Koishikawa Public Clinic in nineteenth century Japan, near the city of Nagasaki. Medicine in Japan was undergoing major changes due to exposure of Japanese physicians to Western medical practices at the Dutch medical school in Nagasaki. The Japanese referred to Dutch physicians as “Red Beards” and their medical practices as “Red Medicine.” Hence the film’s title, “Red Beard.”

The film’s script treats its subject matter with admirable realism. A rich variety of primary and secondary characters are introduced and several undergo character development over the course of the film. Instead of basing the evolution of the main character on one climactic revelatory moment (as all too many films do), Kurosawa allows the deepening of personality and understanding to accumulate gradually as a natural result of numerous experiences (which is how personal growth usually occurs in real life). There’s a profound honesty and simplicity to the script that is downright refreshing. The script is highly literate and provides an excellent balance between humor, drama, characterization, and action.

The film’s major weakness is that the script is somewhat overly episodic. This gives Red Beard something of the feel of a mini-series or soap opera. Kurosawa strays frequently from the main story in extended tangential subplots. The gradual education of the young doctor Noboru Yasumoto provides the only integrating motif. It’s a bit like four or so episodes of Dr. Kildare strung together.

This film is not especially typical of Kurosawa’s output due to the extent of emphasis on narrative. Kurosawa was known, both early and late in his career, for spectacular visuals and highly developed camerawork. There’s nothing that disappoints about the cinematography for this film. It just doesn’t stand out as it does in either The Seven Samurai or Ran. It’s kept subordinate to the story. For many of the scenes in Red Beard, Kurosawa uses telephoto lenses to flatten the visual field and allow the camera to remain in focus as it moves. There’s an assortment of interesting perspective shots, looking down corridors, for example, and a magnificent tracking shot, near the end, by which the camera descends into a well before turning to peer back up at a group of characters shouting into the pit. If the individual images draw less attention than is typical of Kurosawa’s work, they nevertheless exhibit the same masterful composition and richness of chiaroscuro. It’s mainly only the kinetic element and the panoramic landscapes that are less in evidence in Red Beard compared to, say, Ran.

The costumes and sets were meticulously designed with period authenticity firmly in mind. Details of medical practice were verified as consistent with nineteenth century medicine. The soundtrack is mostly unobtrusive, though occasionally resorting to those heavy-handed dramatic sounds designed to tell viewers what they are supposed to be feeling. The music sometimes pauses for extended periods of time to allow natural sounds to permeate the atmosphere.

Both of the lead men provide strong performances. Yuzo Kayama gives us a highly sympathetic character as the central protagonist. It is through his eyes that we see the events unfold. Kayama had earlier appeared in Chushingura (1962) and was something of a matinee idol in his day. Mifune’s performance is restrained and authoritative. He’s magnificent, of course, in the one fight scene, but just as powerful, in other ways, as the compassionate healer and mentor.

This is a high quality film, with a touching story and profoundly humanistic themes. The performances are excellent, the cinematography is superb, and the character development outstanding. You shouldn’t let my small number of quibbles with the film (such as length and an overly episodic script) dissuade you from watching it.

-Metalluk

My thoughts: I agree with Metalluk’s conclusion: “I especially recommend this film for anyone anticipating a career in medicine, psychology, social services, or other helping professions. It’s a reminder that we all need to keep our priorities straight and recognize that status and success are less important than making some kind of tangible difference in the lives of our fellow humans.”

“You don’t know yet what an awful place the world can be.”

Synopsis: Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged prostitute who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy, and highlights director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s lifelong fascination with the marginalized and dispossessed. Though banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity, today Mamma Roma is considered a classic: a glimpse at a country’s most controversial director in the process of finding his style and a powerhouse performance by one of cinema’s greatest actresses.

Critique: Pasolini was a deeply fatalistic individual and believed that “the only thing that makes man really great is the fact that he will die.” The foremost theme of Mamma Roma might be summed up as the hopelessness (and infectious influence) inherent in the efforts of the sub-proletariat to improve their lot in life. Pasolini despised the consumerism of the bourgeoisie and felt that the sub-proletariat despoiled itself in striving for middleclass status. Mamma Roma’s purchase of a motorbike for her son is emblematic of her contamination by consumerism. One might cynically note that Pasolini late succumbed to the lure of consumerism himself. When he was murdered and run over by his own car at just fifty-three years of age, the car was an Alfa-Romero. At least his tragic death fulfilled his own criterion for greatness.

Pasolini portrays Mamma Roma as virtually imprisoned in her social class and pathetic in her efforts to emerge from it. It was for this reason that Pasolini’s fellow Communists rejected his work, even though it was also vociferously rejected by the neo-Fascists on the right. The Communist perspective on the arts favored portrayals of the proletariat as noble and wholesome individuals unfairly suppressed by decadent capitalists. Pasolini, instead, paints a picture of life in the borgate that is itself morally decadent and anything but noble.

The script for Mamma Roma follows the Neo-realist tradition to the extent of evoking emotions of empathy and concern for the struggling lower class. A story of a struggling mother trying to provide for her family and improve their lot is ordinary enough, but the particulars with which Pasolini fills out his story are exceptional. The sympathetic treatment of prostitution and blackmail was quite original and aroused the consternation of Italian authorities. Pasolini’s script was also exceptional for what it did not tell. Many particulars are left to our imaginations. We don’t know, for example, the identity of Ettore’s father or who raised him in his youth. For that matter, we learn precious little about Mamma Roma’s history.

One of Pasolini’s consistent strengths, as a filmmaker, is the quality of his dialog. Pasolini had a keen interest in language, local dialects, and street language, in particular. He drew both his actors, for this film, and those he later used for dubbing from the borgate, giving the film exceptional linguistic authenticity. Then, Pasolini drew on his experience as poet and novelist to write dialog that was always compelling and sometimes, even, poetic.

There is a pair of standout scenes in this film in which Mamma Roma strides along the prostitute’s promenade, soliloquizing on life, the hardships of prostitution, love, and destiny. As she strolls along, the camera rolls backward, receding at the same pace as she approaches, thus suggesting the unattainable destination that is her dream. As she walks, the people in her life – a mix of hookers, pimps, and customers – momentarily join her, share a bit of dialog with her, and then peel off, each in turn. The two recurrences of this basic motif pretty much sum up the essence of Mamma Roma’s existence: a few passing contacts with the folks mired at her own level of existence combined with striving toward an unattainable objective. Mamma Roma’s boisterous demeanor can be easily understood as defense against genuine involvement.

Pasolini had a deep love for the paintings of the Renaissance masters and his cinematographic style demonstrates it. His mise-en-sceée is always painterly. He emphasizes frontal shots with a shallow depth of field. Backgrounds are carefully selected to set off his characters. Both Mamma Roma and its predecessor, Accattone!, were shot in gritty, high-contrast, black-and-white.

-Metalluk

My Thoughts: Richard Gibson was kind enough to recommend “Mamma Roma” as a companion to “Nights of Cabiria.” There were many parallels between these films such as the Catholic symbolism and subject matter. However, I found myself much more sympathetic toward Cabiria than Mamma Roma.

“God…Odin…come!”

Synopsis: One of the most visually beautiful of all black-and-white films, The Virgin Spring won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1961. The picture remains a powerful parable of good and evil, of faith lost and recovered. Adapted from a folk ballad, it is a study in contrasts, but not extremes. Set in a society struggling with the transition to Christianity from Norse paganism and a feudal economy, the film depicts savage violence that begets savage retribution. But there is also hope, and light and shadow, dappled in shades of gray both symbolic and literal, as with the stunning chiaroscuro cinematography—one of many quiet wonders in this rich, deeply moving cinematic experience.

An emotionally devastating experience, The Virgin Spring elicits a deep appreciation of life through its depiction of senseless death and the futility of revenge. Bergman urges his audience to cherish the time we do have, even in the face of incomprehensible cruelty. That sweet sentiment softens a harsh reminder of the fleeting hours ahead.

Steve Evans, DVD Verdict

Critique: In October 2005, Ang Lee took time out from Brokeback Mountain’s festival circuit to record a video introduction for this Criterion edition of Ingmar Bergman’s austerely beautiful The Virgin Spring. In it, Lee says that when he first saw this black-and-white Scandinavian film as an 18-year-old in Taiwan, it “dumbfounded” and “electrified” him. He stayed in the screening room to view it a second time, and “life changed afterward,” he declares. Its quietude coupled with brutal violence, and its whispering fundamental questions — particularly “God, where are you?” — expressed for Lee a “microscope into humanity.” He adds, “Watching that movie made me a different filmmaker.” Lee probably didn’t set out to speak thematically of The Virgin Spring in terms of a filmmaker in transition, though it’s fitting given the film’s place in Bergman’s canon. Released in 1960, it marks the final title associated with the auteur’s classical period, those major films of the 1950s such as Wild Strawberries, The Magician, and The Seventh Seal. Although its visual and existential aesthetics strike us here and now as unmistakably “Bergmanesque,” the director himself became critical of his reliance on imitating the visual styles of other filmmakers, chiefly Kurosawa. Beginning with his next major work, Through a Glass Darkly (’61), we see Bergman’s own distinctive style assertively developing. And in terms of practical professional transitions, after The Virgin Spring ended up winning Bergman his first Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1961, the newfound acclaim brought a financial and prestige boost that helped him ascend to the next phase of his career.

—Mark Bourne

“Adapted from a fourteenth century Swedish legend by screenwriter and novelist Ulla Isaksson, The Virgin Spring is a harrowing, yet ultimately affirming portrait of faith, humanity, and atonement. Using chiaroscuro imagery that interplays light and shadows, Ingmar Bergman reflects the process of spiritual illumination in the transitional era of the Middle Ages where mysticism, amorality, and paganism coexisted with the period of intellectual, artistic, and religious enlightenment: the opening image of Ingeri performing her chores that transitions into an illuminated crucifix as Töre and Märeta pray; the physical dissimilarity between the fair haired Karin and the dark haired “adopted” Ingeri; the stark visual contrast between the dark and claustrophobic interiors of the farmhouse and the sunlit path along the stream; the light precipitation of snow after the brothers’ unconscionable act. As Ingeri (the allusional fallen sinner, Mary Magdalene) becomes a witness to the manifestation of secular discord and divine grace, she follows her own figurative path from religious darkness and moral bankruptcy to a state of spiritual baptism and enlightenment.”

-Acquarello, Strictly Film School

My thoughts: There are emotions that films commonly elicit from people like desire, happiness, interest, surprise, wonder and sorrow. “The Virgin Spring” is the only movie in which I have experienced hate. It’s testimony to just how emotionally brutal this movie is. It will test you, and for some viewers, it will change you.

“I met Death today. We are playing chess.”

Synopsis: A Knight and his squire are home from the crusades. Black Death is sweeping their country. As they approach home, Death appears to the knight and tells him it is his time. The knight challenges Death to a chess game for his life. The Knight and Death play as the cultural turmoil envelopes the people around them as they try, in different ways, to deal with the upheaval the plague has caused.

Critique: Easily, one of the greatest films ever made, The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman’s towering allegory about the human condition, seems at once utterly timeless and acutely aware of the world that it takes place in. Set in 14th-century Sweden, the movie takes place in a medieval land that’s being torn apart by the Crusades and the Plague, but it focuses just as intently on the fleeting moments of happiness that its characters feel as the disasters that they face. Within minutes of its opening, the movie casts itself into a realm of abstraction, trotting out Death itself as a main character, and this distance from reality enables it to look more directly at its philosophical question, which is, basically, “What if there is no God?” A variety of answers are offered up to this question, through the reactions of the diverse assortment of characters that populates the film, and each of them is parlayed with enough conviction from the actor delivering it that it feels as convincing and right as the last. As in many of Bergman’s films, it’s fairly impossible to find a definitive surrogate for the director, since each character is both sympathetic and pitiable.

Every scene seems to be balanced delicately between comedy and drama, and in the best scenes (the confession to Death, the confrontation of the priest turned grave-robber) each line of dialogue seems to change what the scene is trying to say. The theme moves from anger, to revenge, to lust, to freedom, to fear, to forgiveness, from second to second. You realize what it’s trying to do, and succeeding at, is saying all of those things about people at once. Its optimistic and droll moments are all the more impressive because they come after people stare into the abyss. The impending end of the world seems no reason not to keep one’s chin up. Perhaps even more impressively, it shows that the desire to search for answers here doesn’t preclude being afraid that the answer might not be what one hoped. The reaction of a knight (a brilliant Max von Sydow) and his squire (Gunnar Bjornstrand) to spiritual disappointment is contrasted most tragically against that of an angry mob that burns an innocent girl, claiming she is a witch. The power of this harrowing scene is reduced in no way by the shenanigans that surround it, nor the impression that Judgment Day is just around the corner anyway.

Bergman touches on nearly every one of his major themes in The Seventh Seal, and if he might have elaborated on many of them better elsewhere, I’m not sure that he’s ever made such a comprehensive, watchable flick as this one. Man’s self-destructive search for answers is made literally apocalyptic here, but it’s also made apparent that it’s wholly necessary if any meaning is to be found. The complexities that the film offers up as answers seem to hold fragments of universal truth, but nothing definitive, and in that haziness lays the movie’s truest wisdom. The blunt insistence of Death (the unforgettable Bengt Ekerot) that the game of life must come to an end frustrates most since, thanks to the supreme intelligence of the script, we felt we were on the right path, even if still haven’t figured it all out. The movie’s ultimate message is not to look for definitive answers, since nothing is guaranteed to remain as might originally appear. Even inevitable death is a disappointing anticlimax here, since it doesn’t bestow the expected enlightenment with its coming. The serendipitous joys found in the moment are most important in this context because they make no demands and carry with them no expectation. That surprisingly life-affirming message is the one thing in The Seventh Seal that endures long after its striking images of death and decay fade from the mind.

-Jeremy Heilman, MovieMartyr.com

My thoughts: I can relate to the knight, Antonius Block, “I want knowledge, not faith, not supposition, but knowledge.” Like Ikiru, the Seventh Seal is one of the great cinematic expressions of Existentialist philosophy. I love this Movie.

“Rice, salt, matches …give some. Other people come, find food, not die.”

Synopsis: Against a backdrop of the treacherous mountains, rivers and icy plains of the Siberian wilderness, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai, Rashomon) stages an extraordinary adventure of comradeship and survival. For decades, Kurosawa had longed to film Vladimir Arsenyev’s novel and was only able to do so at the invitation of Mosfilm Studios in Russia, who financed an arduous, two-year filmmaking expedition into the far reaches of Siberia.

The Academy Award-winning (Best Foreign-Language Film) Dersu Uzala is the enthralling tale of an eccentric Mongolian frontiersman who is taken on a guide by a Soviet surveying crew. While the soldiers at first perceive Dersu as a naïve and comical relic of an uncivilized age, he quickly proves himself otherwise with displays of ingenuity and bravery unmatched by any member of the inexperienced mapping team, on more than one occasion becoming their unlikely savior.

Critique: Legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa ventures outside the Japanese language with Dersu Uzala, a spectacular visual journey through the lives of the eponymous Siberian hunter (Maksim Munzuk) and Russian explorer Arseniev (Yuri Solomin). The auteur displays on screen the awesome power of nature that words simply fail to adequately describe. Kurosawa brings Arseniev’s stirring memoir to life. Dersu and Arseniev undertake two expeditions together through the brutal Siberian wilderness. Their struggle to survive an incredibly dangerous ice storm leaves an indelible imprint on the viewers mind. Although the landscape is undeniably breathtaking, the film is really a human portrait, focusing on the lengthy friendship between the two men. It’s tested by differences in opinion, culture, time and space; the perennial challenges to any human relationship.

-Ky N. Nguyen, Washington Post Diplomat

“Akira Kurosawa transcends the confines of traditional cinema with the startling imagery and camerawork of Dersu Uzala: the barren trees glowing red from the embers of the campfire; the ethereal blue smoke rising as Dersu points out his family’s burial site to Arseniev; the long, static shot of the two men looking at the horizon, juxtaposed between the rising moon and setting sun; the seamless tracking of the soldiers aboard a raft, drifting down the river; the frenetic panning sequence as Dersu and Arseniev struggle to reap grass during the windstorm. To define Dersu Uzala as a story about an aboriginal tribesman is to describe humanity through a two-dimensional photograph. Dersu Uzala is an allegory for the environmental toll of civilization, a testament to a profound, enduring friendship, and a heartbreaking portrait of aging and obsolescence.”

-Acquarello, Strictly Film School

My thoughts: Dersu Uzala has a much different feel and pace than Kurosawa’s other films. It is long, contemplative and primal. I couldn’t help but like the character of Dersu. This is one of the best “buddy” movies I’ve seen.

“Whatever God does is for the best.”

Synopsis: One of the greatest directors of modern cinema, Satyajit Ray became an instant success with his debut film, PATHER PANCHALI (Song of the Little Road). The first Indian film to ever become a hit in the West, PATHER PANCHALI is the moving story of a rural family cursed with bad luck. Father Hari is a dreamer and poet, while his hard-working wife struggles to feed the family. But Durga, a free-spirited and petty thief, brings tragedy to the family in a moment’s carelessness. Awarded many prizes at film festivals all over the world, PATHER PANCHALI catapulted Satyajit Ray to international acclaim and launched one of the cinema’s most distinguished careers. Pather Panchali is part of the Apu Trilogy, along with Aparajito and The World of Apu.

Critique: Imagine for a moment that a twenty-nine year old commercial artist living in Calcutta decides out of the blue that he’d like to make a movie based on a complex multi-volume novel. He has no money, no connections, and few resources of any kind. He teams up with a still photographer who has never previously operated a motion picture camera. They borrow a 16 mm motion picture camera. They choose a bunch of children with no acting experience without so much as conducting screen tests. For one of the adult leads, they find an eighty year-old hunched-over wreck of a woman who had done some acting decades earlier but who is presently living in a brothel. (She initially thinks they’ve come looking for sexual services!) They enlist the services of an unknown solo musician to provide the musical score. The script involves precious little in the way of a plot, providing instead mainly a stark portrayal of abject poverty. Two of the five main characters die over the course of the film. How would you rate the chances of success for such a project? I know . . . not good! Now, consider that the resultant film went on to win the top prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 1956. It revolutionized filmmaking in its country of origin – India. It has impacted many filmmakers throughout the world by its intimate and poetic portrayal of the simplicities of daily living. It is widely regarded by filmmakers and critics as an unqualified masterpiece.

Pather Panchali accomplishes something that great films achieve: it finds the core of universal truths and human feelings while telling its plaintive tale in a culturally specific context. This film captures what appears to me, as an outsider, to be the essence of life in India. It is about the struggles and deprivations related to poverty and death of loved ones.

-Metalluk

My thoughts: Have you ever noticed some photographs are more powerful in Black & White? The cinematography in Pather Panchali is of that quality. Images ingrained in my memory are of children playing in a downpour and a distant train chugging across a field of wheat.

Well, I finally got the chance to see Persona on the silver screen! The Gene Siskel Film Center is showing a 14 program series entitled European Art Cinema. I went along with my father and his friend Paul. They’re administrators at Prairie State College. The show wasn’t a sellout like Tokyo Story was last year, so we got great seats. I suspect the lower attendance was because Persona is far less accessible than Ozu’s film. We had a wonderful cinema experience. Best of all, after watching Persona, we went to a coffee shop and discussed the film for a while. There was a lot to talk about.

My thoughts: Directed by Ingmar Bergman, Persona (1966) is a sight to behold on a big theater screen. Persona starts with a demonstration of how imagery can have a powerful effect on us. Images of an erect penis, Christ’s hand being nailed to a cross, a lamb having is throat sliced open flash across the screen. As we watch the blood pour from the lamb’s neck, we see its eyes dim in death, and we are horrified. We see a boy in a morgue caressing the viewer’s face through a camera lens. Our perspective is from the outside looking in. Perspective shifts, and we notice that the location where we once stood as viewers, is replaced by interchanging images of Elisabet and Alma. We are now in the room with the boy, from the inside looking out.

After the opening credits, we cut to a hospital where we meet Alma, a nurse played by Bibi Andersson. We also meet Elisabet Vogler, an actress played by Liv Ullmann. We learn that Elisabet has stopped speaking, by personal choice not illness, during a theater rendition of Elektra. Why has Elisabet stopped speaking? The doctor describes Elisabet’s state of mind as, “The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace.” Like Eleanor Rigby, Elisabet keeps her face in a jar by the door. She is a woman in crises. Not speaking is her defense against the nihilism threatening to annihilate her. Alma, assigned to care of her, is intimidated by the display of mental strength such a choice entails.

Soon after the two women are introduced, Elisabet watches news footage of the Vietnam War in which a man is burned alive. Elisabet’s reaction to the burning man on television illustrates the power of imagery upon her. She is as horrified as we were during Persona’s opening series of images. This is why she is also visibly shaken by the photo of the boy being abducted by the Nazis, later in the film. Real world images affect Persona’s characters just as they affect us, the viewers. I think Ingmar Bergman is showing viewers that influence flows in both directions during the creative process, from film maker to viewer and from viewer to film maker. In essence, the film’s identity was influenced by Bergman’s conception of viewer expectations. I am sure he wanted people to appreciate Persona, his artwork. Conversely, film as art shapes the viewer. My world view, part of my identity, has certainly been influenced by the movies I’ve seen. It’s a symbiotic relationship. This is also reflected in the relationship between Alma and Elisabet. One influences the identity of the other. Bergman’s use of imagery to express this idea was radically innovative. He wanted to deconstruct the film medium and show us, his audience, what movie making truly is. Sine scientia ars nihil est, “Art without knowledge is nothing.” Alma, describes herself at one point as “All lies and imitation.” Perhaps, this is what Bergman constantly reminds the viewer of, that Persona is only a film, a deception, the face in a jar kept by the door.

The rest of Persona takes place at the doctor’s seaside home. It’s here that Elisabet and Alma develop a close friendly relationship. So close, that Alma is slowly being dragged into her charge’s existential struggle and losing herself in the process. For Elisabet, being an actress grants her the ability to project her identity, her soul, if you will. Conversely, Elisabet’s audience lives through her vicariously. For instance, we are Liv Ullmann’s, the actress’s audience, and we identify with the persona she projects on the screen. Elisabet’s sheer mental strength, coupled with Alma’s tractability, the intimacy in which the two women live, and the circumstance of one woman having to speak for the other, result in Elisabet imprinting her identity onto Alma. Because Alma is taking on Elisabet’s persona, she too is going through an ontological self examination. However, she is not as strong as Elisabet. The imprinting is symbolized during a beautiful dream sequence, shot in a glowing twilight, in which Elisabet visits a sleeping Alma.

We don’t know for sure if Elisabet’s visit to Alma was a dream or reality. When asked, Elisabet denies she visited Alma during the night. I’ll take her word for it because there are are other dream sequences later in the film. The two actresses each play half of one complete persona. Alma does all the verbal communication for this persona while Elisabet speaks only through facial expression and body language. Eventually, we realize the women have also exchanged roles. Alma, once the care giver, becomes emotionally needful while Elisabet, once the patient, becomes clinically observant. This exchange of role is symbolized by the juxtaposition of the actress’s heads and then the exchange of their positions on the screen, left to right and right to left.

I think the malleability of Alma’s psyche is alluded to in a confession about a sexual experience she had on a beach from which she got pregnant and consequently, had an abortion. I won’t relate the full account here as Alma does a much better job in the movie. Suffice to say, Alma shares a lover in the presence of another woman on the beach, as she does later in a dream with Mr. Vogler. Meaning, Alma is interchangeable with these women, even during intercourse! The audience is drawn into the scene though verbal intimacy. When Alma confesses to Elisabet her experience, we are in the room with them, privy to an erotic secret being unveiled. The beach story becomes much more vivid because we must imagine the event; it’s not visualized for us on film.

The story takes a violent turn after Alma discovers, in a letter from Elisabet to her doctor, that Elisabet is “studying her.” After confessing so much to Elisabet, Alma feels betrayed and becomes violent. Alma purposefully leaves a shard of broken glass where Elisabet will step bare footed. After Elisabet steps on the glass, she gives Alma a look as if to say, “I know you did this deliberately.” This is the first conflict in Persona between the two women. Right after this, the film appears to break and burn, as if a connection is severed, not only between Alma and Elisabet, but between viewer and film. This is Bergman’s deconstruction of film as art. He is telling us this is simply a film, “All lies and imitation” As with Elisabet’s accusing look to Alma, he is telling us deliberately.

When the film resumes, Alma confronts Elisabet about the letter and they get into a fight. Alma apologizes. Later that night, Alma dreams she is waking up from a nightmare but she is still dreaming. She dreams Mr. Vogler mistaking her for Elisabet. She tries to play the role of Elisabet but cannot continue the deception. “It’s all lies and imitation,” she screams.

The dream continues in another scene where Elisabet is concealing a photo of her son. Alma notices it and says, “We have to talk about it.” We notice that the women are dressed like twins, both wearing black. Filmed with two cameras, this scene is so interesting because it’s repeated twice from different perspectives. First, we see the scene delivered through Alma’s vantage point, looking at Elisabet’s face. When Elisabet refuses to speak, Alma speaks for her. She accuses Elisabet of being repulsed by motherhood, of thinking of her baby boy as disgusting, and that she wished him stillborn. The baby was removed and raised by relatives. Elisabet returned to her work as an actress however, the boy developed a deep love for his mother which she never returned. By Elisabet’s body language, we know Alma’s accusations are accurate. The same scene is shown again so that we see it from Elisabet’s perspective, looking at Alma’s face. From this viewpoint, we learn from reading Alma’s facial expressions that she is not only speaking about Elisabet’s coldness and indifference, but about her own feelings toward her aborted son. With this realization, Alma starts to choke on her words, to desperately deny she is Elisabet and assert her identity. It’s too late. To wit, the famous shot of half of Alma’s face and half of Elizabeth’s face combined to make a single face.

After the dual monologue scene, Alma’s dream continues. Elisabet is still dressed in black but now Alma is dressed in her nurse’s uniform. Alma again confronts Elisabet but again Elisabet’s personality is too strong. Alma pounds the table in frustration and again her sentences become incomprehensible. She cuts her arm open with her fingernail until blood flows and presents it to Elisabet. Elisabet drinks her blood, metaphorically sucking the soul out of Alma. In the last scene of Alma’s dream, Elisabet is back in the hospital, Alma’s domain. Alma asks Elisabet to speak, to say “Nothing.” This time it’s Elisabet who acquiesces and she repeats, “Nothing.” Alma wakes up. We see Elisabet pack a suitcase and Alma also prepares to return to the hospital. Alma boards a bus and as the camera tracks to follow, it focuses on a patch of earth which is, I think, the symbolic burial site for the women’s sons. Indeed, the boy in the morgue caressing the faces of Alma and Elisabet is the last shot of Persona before the film projector light goes out.

I wanted to experience Persona on the big screen and I’m glad I got the chance. Sven Nykvist’s gorgeous cinematography was on full display, with close-ups of Alma and Elisabet communicating volumes, non-verbally, about their state of mind. The close ups in the Alma’s second dream allowed me to see the reaction of each woman. It reminded me of the image of the boy in the morgue, perhaps Elisabet’s son or Alma’s, caressing the women’s faces when the film began. Close-ups made viewing an intimate experience and I haven’t seen any movie with better. They gave me a first person perspective, the same perspective the actresses have of each other. Bergman once said, “The human face is the great subject of the cinema. Everything is there.” Aside from great imagery, both verbal and visual, it’s the nuanced performances of Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullmann that really make this movie unforgettable.