This movie is more red than Krzysztof Kieslowski's Red. It's more visually precise than perhaps anything Bergman ever made, and the color scheme is just part of it.
Cries and Whispers is the story of three sisters and a maid who have gathered in their childhood home as one of the sisters, Agnes, reaches the end of a 12-year long illness. She's due to die, and everyone knows it. The home itself is a stately manor in Sweden, and every wall is red. With the movie's preoccupation with death and women, the prevalent color brings to mind menstruation and the womb at the same time.
It's obvious from the beginning that there is a great distance between the three sisters. Agnes' illness has kept her isolated from the other two, but Maria and Karin (three always seems to be a Karin in a Bergman film, doesn't there?) simply don't connect. Their talk is halting and brief. In fact, as the movie opens, we understand that there are three sisters and a maid, but the relationships aren't obvious because of how everyone treats each other. Anna, the maid, is assumed to be a sister because of how affectionately she interacts with Agnes.
Through the movie, we see three different flashbacks for each sister. Agnes' revolves around their mother (played, like the adult Maria, by Liv Ullman) and the distance she felt towards her contrasted with her mother's very close relationship with Maria. Maria's flashback deals with an affair she struck up with the local family doctor (played by Erland Josephson, recreating the married couple from Scenes from a Marriage) when her husband was away in town on business. Her husband instinctively knows that the affair happens and makes a sloppy attempt at suicide that we learn, at the end of the movie, didn't work. Karin's flashback demonstrates the complete lovelessness of her own marriage and her self-destructive tendencies. At dinner, she breaks a glass to which her husband barely acknowledges. She then cuts her vagina with a piece of the glass as she prepares for bed and smears the blood over her face in open defiance of her husband who looks on in horror.
Agnes dies, and it is Anna, the maid, who has the most profound reaction. Maria and Karin seemed removed. They had expected the death and don't have the same connection to Agnes. It is here, though, that I think the movie really begins to blossom. Faced with departing the home and selling it off in the wake of Agnes' death, Maria makes a plea to Karin for them to connect. Karin rejects it at first. She confesses a strong hatred for everyone and everything, in particular Maria (and perhaps, by extension, their mother who obviously preferred Maria over the other two sisters). But that anger is fleeting and the two end up talking and embracing in the way that Maria had dreamed. The dialogue falls away, as it is not terribly important to the audience what specifics they speak about only that they speak, and they caress each other's faces in their hands (a common visual motif to imply closeness from Bergman).
But the moment ends, and the strangeness begins as Agnes' dead body speaks to Anna, begging for comfort. She is dead, but she cannot sleep. One after another, the two sisters and then the maid converse with the corpse. Karin expresses pure disgust. Agnes is dead, and this is an abomination. Maria tries to understand, but when Agnes embraces her, Maria reacts in horror and runs away. It is only Anna, the loyal servant, who holds Agnes' rotting corpse affectionately.
After the funeral, everything seems to have returned to how it was. Anna is just a servant again (being dismissed from service with little to nothing in exchange for her 12 years of service). Maria and Karin are cold against each other, but the relationship has reversed. Karin is eager for Maria's emotional warmth, but Maria's warmth suddenly feels threadbare and cold just under the surface (perhaps this is how their mother treated Karin as well whenever they got close). The movie ends with Anna reading from Agnes' diary about a time the previous autumn where the four women had gathered and everything had seemed so happy, leaving the movie on a surprisingly optimistic note considering the emotional devastation and death that we know are to follow.
The movie's central thesis seems to be about the temporary nature of human connection. Agnes' death is the most striking visually, especially with Anna desperate to keep her own connection with Agnes alive through her death. But it hits me most in the stillborn relationship between Maria and Karin. They did connect, and they connected fully, but it wasn't to last. In some ways, there are echoes of the merge of personalities seen in Persona, but Cries and Whispers makes it more nihilistic, perhaps.
It's a moving and intelligent film.
Cries and Whispers is the story of three sisters and a maid who have gathered in their childhood home as one of the sisters, Agnes, reaches the end of a 12-year long illness. She's due to die, and everyone knows it. The home itself is a stately manor in Sweden, and every wall is red. With the movie's preoccupation with death and women, the prevalent color brings to mind menstruation and the womb at the same time.
It's obvious from the beginning that there is a great distance between the three sisters. Agnes' illness has kept her isolated from the other two, but Maria and Karin (three always seems to be a Karin in a Bergman film, doesn't there?) simply don't connect. Their talk is halting and brief. In fact, as the movie opens, we understand that there are three sisters and a maid, but the relationships aren't obvious because of how everyone treats each other. Anna, the maid, is assumed to be a sister because of how affectionately she interacts with Agnes.
Through the movie, we see three different flashbacks for each sister. Agnes' revolves around their mother (played, like the adult Maria, by Liv Ullman) and the distance she felt towards her contrasted with her mother's very close relationship with Maria. Maria's flashback deals with an affair she struck up with the local family doctor (played by Erland Josephson, recreating the married couple from Scenes from a Marriage) when her husband was away in town on business. Her husband instinctively knows that the affair happens and makes a sloppy attempt at suicide that we learn, at the end of the movie, didn't work. Karin's flashback demonstrates the complete lovelessness of her own marriage and her self-destructive tendencies. At dinner, she breaks a glass to which her husband barely acknowledges. She then cuts her vagina with a piece of the glass as she prepares for bed and smears the blood over her face in open defiance of her husband who looks on in horror.
Agnes dies, and it is Anna, the maid, who has the most profound reaction. Maria and Karin seemed removed. They had expected the death and don't have the same connection to Agnes. It is here, though, that I think the movie really begins to blossom. Faced with departing the home and selling it off in the wake of Agnes' death, Maria makes a plea to Karin for them to connect. Karin rejects it at first. She confesses a strong hatred for everyone and everything, in particular Maria (and perhaps, by extension, their mother who obviously preferred Maria over the other two sisters). But that anger is fleeting and the two end up talking and embracing in the way that Maria had dreamed. The dialogue falls away, as it is not terribly important to the audience what specifics they speak about only that they speak, and they caress each other's faces in their hands (a common visual motif to imply closeness from Bergman).
But the moment ends, and the strangeness begins as Agnes' dead body speaks to Anna, begging for comfort. She is dead, but she cannot sleep. One after another, the two sisters and then the maid converse with the corpse. Karin expresses pure disgust. Agnes is dead, and this is an abomination. Maria tries to understand, but when Agnes embraces her, Maria reacts in horror and runs away. It is only Anna, the loyal servant, who holds Agnes' rotting corpse affectionately.
After the funeral, everything seems to have returned to how it was. Anna is just a servant again (being dismissed from service with little to nothing in exchange for her 12 years of service). Maria and Karin are cold against each other, but the relationship has reversed. Karin is eager for Maria's emotional warmth, but Maria's warmth suddenly feels threadbare and cold just under the surface (perhaps this is how their mother treated Karin as well whenever they got close). The movie ends with Anna reading from Agnes' diary about a time the previous autumn where the four women had gathered and everything had seemed so happy, leaving the movie on a surprisingly optimistic note considering the emotional devastation and death that we know are to follow.
The movie's central thesis seems to be about the temporary nature of human connection. Agnes' death is the most striking visually, especially with Anna desperate to keep her own connection with Agnes alive through her death. But it hits me most in the stillborn relationship between Maria and Karin. They did connect, and they connected fully, but it wasn't to last. In some ways, there are echoes of the merge of personalities seen in Persona, but Cries and Whispers makes it more nihilistic, perhaps.
It's a moving and intelligent film.