As stark and ascetic as several of the early Ingmar Bergman films can be, there is a richness of storytelling that extends far beyond the technical vocabulary of its day. 1963's "Winter Light" covers a crisis of conscience. As a whole, it may be viewed as one long yawp into the gaping maw of both faith and life. Yet Bergman never allows actors to break down and pour forth their raw emotions.
Opening with a quaint and somewhat rote Lutheran (yet standard) communion at the end of a church service, Bergman and cinematographer Sven Nykvist shoot the space for its emptiness (only five in attendance) and detail. Editor Ulla Ryghe uses closeups of the holiest displays in the church as if they too are part of the quiet assembly.
From a lower angle, we too take communion with fisherman Jonas Persson, his pregnant wife Marta, and the atheist Marta - the Pastor's former mistress. After the service concludes, we discover that Pastor Tomas is ill - yet he soldiers on. While the service was so by the numbers, Bergman allows us to see the organist checking his watch in the middle of playing - afterward, it seems that everyone wants more of the pastor's time. In addition, Tomas is somewhat heroically struggling to get to the 3 o'clock service out of town.
Bergman is not necessarily diverting our attention, but Jonas Persson (played meekly by Max Von Sydow) needs to talk. Surprisingly, his wife does most of the talking for him, and this robust actor is a shrinking violet who never makes eye contact. Jonas is struggling mightily with the fact that China may soon "get the bomb" and with that end all regard anyone has with life via nuclear annihilation. Was Bergman playing this angle up to an unsuspected high pitch? Certainly, the Cold War made everyone less trustworthy and more vigilant. However, here is a fisherman in frigid Sweden who can still make a boat but cannot stop talking to his wife about the possible end of the world.
Not willing to talk about this confession and fighting off the flu, Tomas confesses to Jonas. Actor Gunnar Björnstrand is cast against type, a comic actor playing a deadly serious role. As Tomas speaks of the sins of indifference, infidelity, and his private loss of faith in the wake of his wife's passing four years ago, we feel less empathy for him and see more menace. Under the veil of his duty as a clergyman, Tomas is sicker from loss and confusion than the flu that is going around.
At its most revolutionary, Bergman and Nykvist shoot a sequence that even today is astonishing. Marta has written Tomas a lengthy letter, which he of course puts off reading. So for their first post-service meeting, we see Marta as doting and needing someone to care for. Later as Tomas reads the letter, Bergman and Nykvist have the actress Ingrid Thulin say it all in one six-minute unbroken shot. The effect is hypnotic. The schoolmarm we encountered before, is carefully releasing the streams of small rivers of doubt, mistrust, and self-hatred which boil within her. Inside, she knows Tomas is miserable and that her compulsion to care is only making these uncertainties feel worse in the cauldron that is her heart. Thulin, always riveting in Bergman's films, develops her monologue to be less confessional and more morose. If that were not enough, in coping with the finality of their now-doomed relationship, she tells a story about how she suffered from such terrible rashes that they had to bind her hands so she would not scratch. Is it only then, that Bergman and Nykvist break away to a slight reenactment as we see the atheist Marta out of frustration tear the bandages off to pray with Tomas.
"Winter Light" is not a gentle quietude. As you can see, Bergman gives you much to consider about faith and how interactions in its regard can either be the most comforting or make you want to scream. Yet for all of the tragedy and drama that can be crammed into this single afternoon, no one screams - and life goes on.
