A Mirror Floating in Water

Through a Glass Darky - This film is one of the greatest religious films ever made, and the reason why this is so is not because it is filled with angels and demons, but because it deals with real humans on a human level, existing within the absurdity of the human condition. This absurdity and despair is something Bergman admits in all of his films, but in the tradition of Kierkegaard, he still finds a place for God.

The title is a quote from Corinthians (Swedish translation) which said that our understanding of God will only be as clear as "through a glass darkly" and will only be clear once we die. What Bergman is so fascinated by, is how we as humans are able to survive without this kind of knowledge.

The story is quite simple really; it makes place entirely on an island, with only four characters (what would be known as a chamber film), and basically concerns the return of a schizephrenic young women to her family, after being released from an asylum, and the interactions between the four; the father (guilty because he rarely spends time with his son and daughter), the schizephrenic women's husband and the father's son.

This is such a quiet and beautiful movie, with very little action taking place and mostly consisting of long dialouges and silent human moments. Take for example around the begining, when the son has just put on a play for his father; the father recognizing the undertones concerning the son's fustration with his negligence and choosing of work over family, silently gets up and goes back into the house in which he mournfully stands at the window and silently weeps. Bergman doesn't try to pump up this moment with melodramatic music or cutting, but instead just leaves the camera where it is and lets it speak for itself. The father then comes back out and acts like nothing ever happened.

Eventually the daughter's schizephrenia begins to come back and tragedy occurs. Not tragedy in any sort of traditional or conventional way, nobody dies, nothing physically tragic occurs; it's just the tragedy of human experience, as if watching some mentally-ill person throw a fit on the floor (which is what happens).

This film has so many good speeches, and not speeches on any sort of epic philosophical idea, but just personal soliloqueys concerning each person's life, which then in part, silently consitute a bigger whole. Take for example the daughter's soliloquey at the climax of the film concerning God and a spider. It is so powerfully and yet subtly done, with such poetry, that it has to be one of the greatest speeches in all of cinema, and really hits home what Bergman's metaphor is saying.

I must say, that of all the great directors of the human experience, Bergman is the best; yes Fellini is great at capturing the induvidual and the confusion of society, but Bergman is the only one who can make statements about the human condition in such a silent and subtle way, like the waves which softly curl up upon the shores at the begining and end of the film.
10/10