Through a Glass DarklyMental illness can be a tribulation to live with, for the bearer as well as the family surrounding the victim. Often misunderstood, mental health issues--like schizophrenia--can be crippling, and can leave one incapable of living a normal life, or even living at all. It can be especially challenging for those who care for the victim to support her in her time of need the way she needs to be cared for, but the effort is important, a sign of love. Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly concerns Karin (Harriet Andersson) and her schizophrenia, and her family as they struggle with her relapse while on vacation.
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To watch Through a Glass Darkly, you would not have the impression that the movie has anything to do with Karin's gradual--almost imperceptible at first--disintegration into bouts of madness, but that the chamber piece is a story of a closely knit family of Karin and her brother, Minus (Lars Passgård), her husband, Martin (Max von Sydow), and her father, David (Gunnar Björnstrand), and their get together for a vacation of fishing, swimming, and play. While Karin actually comes across as the most stable of the batch at first, the other members of the family have their own idiosyncrasies to varying degrees, especially David, who has great difficulty conveying his emotions honestly, even with his own family. What is made clear in the earlier portion of the film, however, is that each member of the family loves one another, and that love is what helps them cope with Karin's condition, and support one another as they support her in this trial. Karin's relapse isn't immediate; rather, it emerges at the most inopportune time, after Martin and David have gone off to fish, leaving the seventeen-year old Minus to stumble through how to help his sister in her mental fog. Karin's visions and voices manifest as a kind of religious angst: she believes that the voices in their dilapidated attic have told her that "God" will appear, and she and others are waiting for him. As a parallel, the night before after dinner, Karin and Minus put on a play for their father, where she is a ghost of a princess, haunting a church. It's possible that some of this fantasy has stuck with Karin and manifests in her delusion, or it could be that she--like her father and Minus--are looking for some kind of affirmation of God, even if they are not actively pursuing His existence. Karin's pantomime of a "Joan of Arc" with her religious vision takes a startling turn when even her fantasy betrays her, as God appears in her mind as a spider with a cruel face, not a loving or benevolent caretaker. In contrast, David reassures Minus about his impression of God as love, even if that love is not easy for us to understand, a feeling which is reassuring in their love of their family member struck with this condition. David has cause to believe that there is some kind of higher power at work, if only because the despair which seized him in Switzerland was cut short by what he must perceive as providence.
For the strange behavior which Karin expresses, there is never a sense that what she is doing is something she does consciously, but rather a behavior she does not have full agency over. The title of the movie comes from a line in the Holy Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Superficially, the meaning relates to the altered perspective which Karin has of the world as the result of her condition. But in those words, there is also another message, one which speaks of a special consideration for Karin's loved ones; and as they begin to know Karin, so too they begin to know about themselves. At its core, Through a Glass Darkly is a film about family, and the struggles and challenges which come in the process of coping with a loved one suffering with mental illness, something so rarely understood by outside parties, so the compassion and love of family is extra important here. In a way, Karin's schizophrenia is like the kind of God which Karin envisions...inscrutable. When Minus is confronted by Karin's varied enactments of her condition, he is unable to understand how to help her, even though he has a sense that he should do something. Martin is frustrated that his wife seems to have no sexual appetite, but he resists getting angry--merely frustrated--because although he cannot understand why she does not want to make love, he has to accept her as he loves her. David is in someways the closest to Karin, at least at a sympathetic level; there is a cold callousness which David masks--although Martin identifies--as his method of coping with Karin's illness, to document her downfall, suggesting in his diary that he might be able to chronicle her experiences. David is not unloving, but he is deeply depressed and filled with self-hatred. He does not know how to rationalize his emotions; he struggles, and he throws himself into his work to help him cope with his own perceived shortcomings. Through a Glass Darkly is much like a character study; although rather than simply focus exclusively on Karin--or any individual member of the family--the film focuses on the family itself, and how it addresses schizophrenia and how their love for Karin helps them in the process.
Recommended for: Fans of a moving chamber piece about mental health issues and the moments where a family must address not only the welfare of their family member, but their own resolution of that condition with themselves.
For the strange behavior which Karin expresses, there is never a sense that what she is doing is something she does consciously, but rather a behavior she does not have full agency over. The title of the movie comes from a line in the Holy Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Superficially, the meaning relates to the altered perspective which Karin has of the world as the result of her condition. But in those words, there is also another message, one which speaks of a special consideration for Karin's loved ones; and as they begin to know Karin, so too they begin to know about themselves. At its core, Through a Glass Darkly is a film about family, and the struggles and challenges which come in the process of coping with a loved one suffering with mental illness, something so rarely understood by outside parties, so the compassion and love of family is extra important here. In a way, Karin's schizophrenia is like the kind of God which Karin envisions...inscrutable. When Minus is confronted by Karin's varied enactments of her condition, he is unable to understand how to help her, even though he has a sense that he should do something. Martin is frustrated that his wife seems to have no sexual appetite, but he resists getting angry--merely frustrated--because although he cannot understand why she does not want to make love, he has to accept her as he loves her. David is in someways the closest to Karin, at least at a sympathetic level; there is a cold callousness which David masks--although Martin identifies--as his method of coping with Karin's illness, to document her downfall, suggesting in his diary that he might be able to chronicle her experiences. David is not unloving, but he is deeply depressed and filled with self-hatred. He does not know how to rationalize his emotions; he struggles, and he throws himself into his work to help him cope with his own perceived shortcomings. Through a Glass Darkly is much like a character study; although rather than simply focus exclusively on Karin--or any individual member of the family--the film focuses on the family itself, and how it addresses schizophrenia and how their love for Karin helps them in the process.
Recommended for: Fans of a moving chamber piece about mental health issues and the moments where a family must address not only the welfare of their family member, but their own resolution of that condition with themselves.