The Silence [VHS]

Product Details

Following Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light, The Silence is the most abstract entry in the trilogy, a somewhat eerie story of two sisters, Esther (Ingrid Thulin) and Anna (Gunnel Lindblom), and the latter's son (Jörgen Lindström), all traveling by train to Sweden but forced to stay in a foreign country when Esther's chronic bronchial problems require her to rest. A stifling atmosphere, a desolate hotel, encounters with a troupe of carnival dwarves, Anna's anchoring illness, and an empty sexual encounter for Esther underscore the unnerving feeling that God has abandoned these characters to dubious salvation in their own connection. A highly memorable film. --Tom Keogh

Product Reviews

(5 stars) - Art film by Bergman
'The Silence' is an art film as opposed to being an entertainment movie. I would personally characterize it as being interesting, rather than entertaining. There is little that is amusing in this dark, somewhat menacing tale, and the few humorous moments are alloyed with a bit of the grotesque.

Two sisters who obviously have been lesbian lovers, along with one's son of around 10 years old, are traveling on vacation. The relationship between the sisters has broken down. The dominant, more intellectual sister has lost her control over the sensuous one, who is rebelling by flaunting her sexual escapades with men. The once-proud and controlling Ester has been reduced to a state of groveling humiliation. Anna's cruelty is fueled by having been so long intimidated and made to feel inferior. She has found a way to assert herself with her promiscuity against Ester's superior attitude, and she is exulting in her power.

That is the most obvious focus of the film. But the effect of this conflict on the boy, Anna's son Johan, is also a very important element. A good portion of the story is seen from Johan's point of view. The world is strange and forbidding enough to children, and this conflict between his mother and his aunt has added even more insecurity, as well as anger. Though the two women shower him with superficial signs of affection, they are too consumed with their power struggle to really pay him much attention.

It is touchingly shown how much children love and need their parents, even when those parents may be reprehensible , or even worthless. Johan does not overtly express his anger, but reveals it in a violent Punch and Judy puppet show which he performs for Ester.

However, I do not mean to suggest that this is like some of those made-for-tv movies which deal in domestic situations and are simply moralizing clothed in a so-so drama. Unlike those types of presentations, there is no padding in this film. Each scene contributes in an important way to the development of the story. And perhaps 'story' is even too strong a description. The progression of the film is more of an ongoing exploration and revelation of the complexities of the relationship between these three characters.

The visual aspects of the film are not merely incidental scenery, but reinforce the psychological states of the players. The militaristic nature of the country they are visiting, with its tanks and aircraft, reflects the aggressive impulses of Anna toward Ester, and Johan toward Anna and Ester. The seething population outside their hotel room seems to represent the untidy world which Ester has always kept at bay with her cool and logical mind.

The conditions of life of the three main characters is out-of-balance in almost every respect compared to conventional ideas. This is shown not only by the relationship between the sisters, but in the escapades of Johan, when he is not being monitored very closely by the adults. He develops a dubious relationship with the hotel steward, whose intentions may or may not be predatory. He has an encounter with a troupe of vaudevillian dwarfs, who entertain him with zany antics, but who are in the process of dressing him up as a girl when they are interrupted and reprimanded by their leader.

There is a destitution of healthy human relationships among these people because of their inability or lack of desire to communicate meaningfully with one another. The irony is that Ester is a translator of foreign languages, but cannot effectively communicate with Anna in their own language. Anna is glad that her lover and she do not speak one another's language. Therefore, they can form no relationship, and he is totally expendable.

'The Silence' is a very nuanced movie, with camera work, visual cues, and music all contributing to reinforce the dialogue. Watching the film a second time, it still seemed interesting because of these contributing elements, which provide a stimulus for the viewer to ponder the depths of the story. It should be noted, for those who might be offended, that the film contains some scenes with strong sexual content.

(3 stars) - A thought-provoking film, but suffers from comparison with Bergman's films immediately before and after
Released in 1963, TYSNADEN (The Silence) is the last in Ingmar Bergman's "chamber trilogy", a loose series of films of the early 1960s marked by small casts, limited plots, and meditations on God. Note that the best way to get the chamber films is in the Criterion Collection box set.

As the film opens, two very different sisters sit in a train compartment. Anna (Gunnel Lindblom) is scantily dressed, animal in her sexuality with her profuse sweating and panting and unkempt hair. Her young son Johan sits beside her. Esther (Ingrid Thulin) is prim and polite. As Esther coughs up blood, we discover that she is also terminally ill. These three are travelers returning home through a foreign land, a country on the brink of war to judge from the train carrying tanks which passes by in the opposite direction. The three check into a hotel while Esther can rest in bed. Anna explores the city as if shopping for meat, while Johan is left to wonder around the eerily quiet himself, running away from the eccentric caretaker and briefly hanging out with a circus troupe of Spanish dwarves. Anna's escapades torment Esther, who can do nothing but drink and writhe in pain.

Bergman called TYSNADEN the "negative imprint" on the other two films of the chamber trilogy. While in SASOM I EN SPEGEL and NATTVARDSGAESTERNA the characters express angst over life in a world where God is distant, TYSNADEN has no mention of God at all. Against the previous two films, we can see that this is really what life is reduced to when religious faith is unsustained. THE SILENCE is the first of Bergman's films to focus mainly on psychology and human relationships, inaugurating a style which was to continue through the 1960s and early 1970s.

The key to TYSNADEN, increasingly clear on repeated viewings, is that these two sisters, the one Apollonian and the other Dionysian, are but two parts of one personality. But once that became clear, I have to admit my evalution of the film suffered. While even a poor Bergman film is light-years beyond most cinematic efforts, TYSNADEN now seems to be like a clunky prototype for 1966's PERSONA, one of Bergman's greatest achievements. Indeed, one wonders all the more if Bergman considered PERSONA a more advanced take on these thems when book Johan reads while sitting in bed is Lermontov's "A Hero in Our Time", the same book read by the older boy in the stunning opening montage of PERSONA.

(5 stars) - The Cries and Whispers of Silence
The title of a dark and erotic final chapter of "faith" trilogy may sum up Bergman's own philosophy regarding religion and God - "God has never spoken because He does not exist". Bergman mentioned that he wanted to make a film with as little dialog as possible because "he had made many films with a lot of talking". He wanted "The Silence" to be a pure cinematographic experience where the images do all the talking. The films centers on two sisters, Ester (Ingrid Thulin) and Anna, (Gunnel Lindblom) to whom Ester is physically attracted. Esther, Anna and her 10-year-old son travel together and had to stop in a hotel located in an unnamed European country due to Esther's serious illness.

The film may be viewed on several levels -as the story of two sisters who apparently used to be close but are not able to communicate and understand one another anymore. Or it can be interpreted as a parable of Sensuality, Intellect, and Innocence, that cannot coexist in the world where God does not exist. As with every great and intelligent work of art, "The Silence" has so much to offer to its viewer, it's got so many questions to ask and it does not provide the easy answers.

Complex, suffocating, screaming through the silence, poignant, passionate, harrowing yet strangely hopeful and even funny sometimes - this is an unforgettable film, a masterpiece, a hidden treasure that has to be rediscovered and to receive as much praise and admiration as "Persona" and "Cries and Whispers" - for both of which "The Silence" was an inspiration. The acting by two Bergman's actresses is a miracle (as usual) as well as Sven Nykvist's camera work in creating the claustrophobic world where silence cries, whispers, and kills...

(5 stars) - The last opus of the Trylogy!

This is a hard film which plays with your inner feelings without a drop of merciless. Two sisters stop in a hotel and will exchange her different opinions and points of view. One of them is frustrated lesbian without anything to give and furthermore nothing to share. The other one is the free loving mother of a 10 years old child. In this claustrophobic stage and micro cosmos Bergman will interweave a painful and harsh portrait in a hallucinating and valiant drama where the loneliness, the hopeless, the God's silence and the lack of affection will be the main springs of terrible revelations and mutual accusations.
A must for Bergman's fans and despite the elapsed time it keeps its semblance and actuality.

(4 stars) - enigmatic
I'm an Ingmar Bergman neophyte and have seen about ten of his films to date, and I think this one haunted me the most. It couldn't leave my mind for a few days. It's crammed with hopelessness and emptiness, and to put it bluntly, is quite depressing. I was able to put up with Persona, Cries and Whispers, The Seventh Seal, and a few others with a fierce motivation to assess and analyze, but this one left me quite deflated. I think it was because of the way the little boy was used; he is left to roam the hotel occupied by weird hotelkeepers and dwarves that like to dress him up in girl clothes while his mother is out all day on sexual rampages with complete strangers, while his dying aunt spends her last days in a room upstairs. The pain displayed is so raw and unflinching that one is inclined to feel uncomfortable and wondering. I think the capper was the ending of this film on the train: mother and son leave the country and leaves the aunt alone to die, and the son, who has openly worshipped his mother all along, looks up at her with such open contempt that she visibly reacts, putting her hand to her throat. And then he looks down at this picture that aunt has given him. It ends on such an enigmatic note that one has no choice but to feel depressed for some time.

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