Raise your hand if you like to feel depressed after watching a movie. I would not be surprised as to how many people actually considered raising their hand to that question. I for one have felt touched and saddened after watching a sad thoughtful movie that riveted my attention. The great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman in making the 1st part of his, “Silence of God”, trilogy, “Through a Glass Darkly”, made one such film. That movie is a raw and exciting portrayal of the anguish and difficultly of life. The 2nd part of that trilogy is, “Winter Light”, for which many consider the best of the three. It has a sparse minimalistic plot which deals with the belief in and interpretation of God. At the end of,” Through a glass darkly” there is a proclamation that God is Love and love is God. “Winter Light”, shows us the same thing by depicting a life without love. The movie then questions whether that type of life means a life without God. It achieves this by telling the tale of a widower Christian pastor who is childless and for whom his deceased wife was his only source of love. Now that she is gone the past four years, so is his lone source of love. What remains is a deep dark depressive hole. This is Bergman at his darkest and most somber. The pastor played by the magnificent Swedish actor Gunner Bjornstrand, serves a cold desolate rural location of Sweden that is as sparse in color as it is in humor and people. Our Pastor is questioning his belief in God and the movie starts with his opening sermon to a small congregation of about eight people, two of which work at the church. It is a typical sermon which quotes passages straight out of the New Testament while detailing the glory of god. We are treated to this sermon via an unmoving static close-up of the Pastor. The combination of Bergman and his superb cinematographer, Sven Hnkvist, results in a probing view of the Ministers face which allowed me to feel that he did not believe in the words that came out of his mouth. From there the film spans a few hours until an afternoon sermon that is similar but in a different church within the desolate parish. Between the two sermons we meet a teacher who was once the Ministers lover and who wants to marry him and a fisherman who is suicidal. Both seek the Pastor for guidance and deliverance. Bergman delivers a very slow and probing style to the story as his camera will focus in and out of characters features at a snail’s pace, in trying to deliver a desired effect. In watching this movie I appreciated the desire and effort in visualizing deep inner meanings to life, love and God. These efforts are truly commendable. They do not however save the movie from being just a tad too boring for me to enjoy.
1001 Movies before you die 