7/10
I was highly disturbed.
7 February 2021
I can't lie: I was highly uncomfortable throughout the film. The topics, the uncomfortably close/intimate visuals, the tensions between the characters, the expressions of pain, the unbearable silence for minutes after minutes. It was not "fun" to watch the film... and difficult to sit through: but I think this makes it a brilliant film, if it could create such strong emotions. It was HIGHLY beautiful, the crimson, the women, the visuals. The images and atmosphere will stay with me a long time. Bergman shows raw conflicts between life and death, beauty and ugliness and the inevitable pains of being human.

"Cries and Whispers" is about pain, death, love, lust, hate, and self-loathing. There are many scenes in the film that I found unbearable, horrifying and depressing. In the same time, it is about beauty and power of life - how little we appreciated it until it is too late. Bergman's actresses giving amazing performances, strikingly beautiful (unreal beauty?). Bergman's simple but devastating approach to Death as an inevitable part of life. The ending is heartbreaking - with Harriet's face and her words from beyond the grave about appreciating every minute of life... Powerful and devastating film.

It is a very interesting, out of the ordinary composition - but I'll also won't watch it again, because it was too depressing and difficult to bear.
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