|
Films/DVD Asylum Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star. |
|
|
|
Films/DVD Asylum Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star. |
|
This has to be one of the most erotically charged films I've ever seen... and mostly, not in ways that are entirely comfortable.
The storyline (more of a sketch, really) is that two sisters - one terminally ill, the other with a young son in tow - are travelling in an un-named European country with the feeling of war all around. They stop in an unknown town - one with an indecipharable language - so the sick sister can rest and a deep psychological drama ensues.
This drama is really a battle between the sisters who could be seen as two sides of a whole person. One, the sick sister, is very buttoned up, intellectual kind of dry and austere... but clearly drawn to the sensuous as revealed by her smoking, drinking and masturbating. The other is carnal to the core. From the first time we see her, laying back in her train seat in a sexy dress with a little bit of sweat on her neck and chest there can be little doubt about that.
They wind up in an old grand hotel and except for a troop of dwarves seem to be the only people staying there. The hotel feels like a metpahor for their own loneliness and for the void created by their lack of commmunication with each other. All three of them... both sisters and the boy, clearly long to connect and they all do in their own ways... just not with each other (at least not, for the most part, healthfully).
The sick sister finds ways to learn a few words in the native language via the hotel employee who brings her a bottle of brandy (they also connect when each recognize Bach's Goldberg Variations playing on the radio). The other sister connects by picking up a local man and spending the afternoon, evening and night having sexual encounters with him and the boy connects via his openess and imagination to the hotel, the employee who brought booze to the sister and the dwarves.
The eroticsim and sensuality in this film (not to mention the overt sexuality) exist not only in the people and circumstances (including but not limited to hints of incest and lesbianism) but in the film itself... and by that I mean the way it was filmed, the look and feel of the imagery. The sense of danger and the unknown... the hints and glimpses of the landscape and environment they travel through. One particulalry compelling and innovative visual scene (and believe me there's no way I can do it justice by decribing it) is when, at the beginning of the film, the boy is looking out the train window and see's row after row of tanks passing by.
This is the third and final installment of Bergman's "Faith Trilogy" and unlike the others where "God" is sort of omin-present, there is hardly mention of the word or any overt struggle with faith. In fact this seems to be a story about the absence of faith. It's a such a departure from the Bergman films (at least the one's I've seen) that preceded that it took me a little while to get into the flow of it. Once there it was a richly rewarding experience.
One final note. The performance's of Ingrid Thulin as the terminally ill sister and Gunnel Lindblom as the carnal sister, while not quite up to Harriet Andersson's portrayel of Karin in Through A Glass Darkly, are absolutely world class.Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Topic - Bergman's "The Silence" - sjb 09:25:41 08/06/07 (3)
- Very nice presentation.........(nt). - afilado 10:46:13 08/06/07 (2)
- RE: Yes too nice, this guy is getting boring... - patrickU 09:56:48 08/07/07 (0)
- Thanks. - sjb 21:46:26 08/06/07 (0)
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
