Winter Light"Where is God?" This question haunts many of Ingmar Bergman's films, but in Winter Light, the question is at the very core of the film, and the answer comes not with a sound, but with silence. But is that silence sufficient proof that God is not real? The story follows Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand), the priest of a small fishing village, whose faith falters in the absence of receiving God's presence. His lover, Märta (Ingrid Thulin), an avowed atheist herself, tries to connect with Tomas, but he repeatedly rebukes her advances. And when he is approached by Jonas Persson (Max von Sydow) for comfort and guidance, Tomas is unable to console the troubled man--and the results are disasterous.
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In some ways, Tomas' suffering is parallel to the passion of Jesus Christ--this comparison is made more overt to the audience at the end of the film by a fellow church member, Algot (Allan Edwall), who consults Tomas about his own interpretation of how Jesus suffered in his final moments. Over the course of Winter Light, Tomas suffers from a cold, but endures--pushes himself--to carry out his duties rather than allow himself rest. Thus he begins to torture himself in a kind of psychological (and physiological) mortification. During their private meeting, Tomas confesses to Jonas that he was a pastor during the Spanish Civil War, and that he ignored the chaos of the world so that it would not challenge his perception of God. Before his wife died four years prior, he began to understand that there is ugliness in the world, that there is suffering...and he began to doubt, as many do, that God could allow these things, a God that he thought he understood. Tomas suffers, but during this Sunday in which Winter Light takes place, this is his "passion", in part a self-inflicted one. He treats Märta with undue coldness--even cruelty--pushing her away from him. Does he do this because he really does not love her? No; his actions are a punishment he inflicts upon himself, for as Märta observes, he is trying to "kill himself with hatred". When Tomas is called to give comfort to the troubled Jonas--who claims his worries are about China's apparent hostilities to the world, which seems to hardly be the real problem for Jonas--Tomas is more interested in acting as the "confessor", and hopes that by talking to Jonas, he can abate his inner terror, and confesses that he does not believe in God. For Jonas, it becomes clear that this was the worst kind of comfort he could have imagined...a short time later, Jonas is found having killed himself by the river with his rifle.
Tomas feels the turn of the screw. When asked to wait for the van to come and collect Jonas' body at the side of the river, he stays alone in the blowing snow. We hear so little of what any other characters say in the scene by the river, just the cold, blowing wind and snow drifting across the wintry road. This is such a striking scene in Winter Light, as the camera remains distant and remote, as though it were the eyes of God, watching the aftermath of the tragedy unfurled following his presumed absence. The cold, the desolation mirrors Tomas' inner turmoil, and watching the lone priest waiting conveys that isolation. Should Tomas have lied to Jonas? Was it his responsibility to provide comfort at the expense of companionship? We cannot help but feel that Tomas reaches this conclusion when he visit's Jonas' wife, Karin (Gunnel Lindblom), and informs her of her husband's death, and then volunteers to read from the Bible with her. Tomas says he always wanted to be useful, even after his wife's death. Is he useful when he tries to provide comfort to Karin in the customary fashion of a priest, and she clearly identifies the offer as hollow? Is he useful when he performs the afternoon service in Frostnas for no one but Märta's benefit? Maybe, because Märta has proclaimed that when she did pray to find a purpose for her strength, she found it in Tomas--and it is a feat worthy of a saint for her to try. The great silence and emptiness that spans across Tomas' soul is profound. Is God testing Tomas? Is there a God to test him? So subtle, so abstract, our only clue may be in that moment for Tomas in the church, when he stands by the window, proclaiming, "God, why have you forsaken me?", and the bright winter light flashes in, illuminating him, a message of infinite possibilities.
One of my favorite shots in Winter Light (with cinematography by Sven Nykvist) takes place early on following Tomas' sermon, and prior to receiving the Eucharist, is an image of a nearly empty church, with perhaps half a dozen parishioners, and maybe half of them who believe in God at all. It raises that question we all ask in our individual crises of faith: how is God relevant in our lives? It is the hardest question to answer, because that answer is one we must discover for ourselves; it cannot be told to us. The original title of Winter Light in Swedish is Nattvardsgästerna, which translates as "The Communicants", which refers to those who partake of the communion, those like the disciples of Christ who later abandoned him, leaving him alone and misunderstood. The nature of the word "communicant" is like that of "communication", which is significant as the crux of the story deals with the conversation between God and those who would hear God. But God is silent, at least as Tomas perceives him. Tomas should be responsible for communicating the word of God to his parishioners, such as Jonas, but is himself silent due to his crisis of faith. As is often the case in Bergman's films, communication--with a focus on the face--is crucial. This comes across especially well as Tomas reads Marta's letter, and we get the words she writes him directly from her as she speaks into the camera, her eyes staring out into ours, inviting (or daring) us into making that leap of faith that comes from genuinely listening to someone. It is hard to look into the eyes of another when they talk with you, because it makes you vulnerable; and Tomas avoids declaring his love for Marta for these reasons, because he is closed off. So the question becomes in Winter Light whether it is God who is silent or Tomas who cannot hear. When Tomas eagerly awaits his conversation with Jonas, it is not as much to convince him of God's benevolence and reassure him, but so that he may himself have someone to confess his doubts unto. And after this declaration of the irrationality of God, after Jonas leaves, the titular "winter light" streams through the window panes--as if an acknowledgement of God's correspondence--but Tomas doesn't notice; he is turned away from the light, absorbed in his own fear.
Something else I find exceptional about Winter Light--as a Bergman film--is that many of his regular players play against the type of other readily identifiable roles that they have played. Max von Sydow will always recall his bold, charismatic characters, not least of which is Antonius Block from The Seventh Seal--but here he plays an anxious, even frightened man, desperate at the possibility of nuclear war purported by the newspapers. His wife, Karin, is played by Gunnel Lindblom, and is a homely but honest woman; contrast this with her earthy, pagan intensity as Ingeri from The Virgin Spring or her lascivious sexuality as Anna from The Silence, and you see a completely different woman. Even the star of Winter Light, Gunnar Björnstrand, had often played characters endowed with wittiness and scholarly glibness, such as Jöns in The Seventh Seal or Dr. Vergerus in The Magician; but Tomas is a quiet man who rarely asks outward questions, only inward, and is unsure and unsmiling, stricken with melancholy. This casting speaks to the actors' versatility, true, but for Bergman aficionados (as I consider myself), it also gives the sense that there is a pervading sense of unease and that kind of off-balancing sensation adds an extra layer of depth to the feeling of despair and the encompassing dread that accompanies it. Other works of film and media that have attempted to tackle God's relevance in our lives as well as the existence of God are not always handled with deference to those with faith. But while Bergman's body of work has often dealt with the silence of God, Winter Light is neither sardonic nor irreverent. The events surrounding Tomas' crisis and the results of his faltering faith and his failings in his role as a priest have ironic and devastating consequences, true. But Bergman does not condemn religion in his tale; the question he poses is whether we are prepared to listen when the crucial communications that will have the most important impact on our soul come to us, be they from God, from our loved ones, or from our very soul.
Recommended for: Fans of contemplative chamber pieces of drama, theological and philosophical adepts, and those looking for a cathartic tale of self-reproach and resolving a sense of powerlessness. And, just to add, Winter Light may be my favorite film by my favorite director, so take that for what it's worth.
Tomas feels the turn of the screw. When asked to wait for the van to come and collect Jonas' body at the side of the river, he stays alone in the blowing snow. We hear so little of what any other characters say in the scene by the river, just the cold, blowing wind and snow drifting across the wintry road. This is such a striking scene in Winter Light, as the camera remains distant and remote, as though it were the eyes of God, watching the aftermath of the tragedy unfurled following his presumed absence. The cold, the desolation mirrors Tomas' inner turmoil, and watching the lone priest waiting conveys that isolation. Should Tomas have lied to Jonas? Was it his responsibility to provide comfort at the expense of companionship? We cannot help but feel that Tomas reaches this conclusion when he visit's Jonas' wife, Karin (Gunnel Lindblom), and informs her of her husband's death, and then volunteers to read from the Bible with her. Tomas says he always wanted to be useful, even after his wife's death. Is he useful when he tries to provide comfort to Karin in the customary fashion of a priest, and she clearly identifies the offer as hollow? Is he useful when he performs the afternoon service in Frostnas for no one but Märta's benefit? Maybe, because Märta has proclaimed that when she did pray to find a purpose for her strength, she found it in Tomas--and it is a feat worthy of a saint for her to try. The great silence and emptiness that spans across Tomas' soul is profound. Is God testing Tomas? Is there a God to test him? So subtle, so abstract, our only clue may be in that moment for Tomas in the church, when he stands by the window, proclaiming, "God, why have you forsaken me?", and the bright winter light flashes in, illuminating him, a message of infinite possibilities.
One of my favorite shots in Winter Light (with cinematography by Sven Nykvist) takes place early on following Tomas' sermon, and prior to receiving the Eucharist, is an image of a nearly empty church, with perhaps half a dozen parishioners, and maybe half of them who believe in God at all. It raises that question we all ask in our individual crises of faith: how is God relevant in our lives? It is the hardest question to answer, because that answer is one we must discover for ourselves; it cannot be told to us. The original title of Winter Light in Swedish is Nattvardsgästerna, which translates as "The Communicants", which refers to those who partake of the communion, those like the disciples of Christ who later abandoned him, leaving him alone and misunderstood. The nature of the word "communicant" is like that of "communication", which is significant as the crux of the story deals with the conversation between God and those who would hear God. But God is silent, at least as Tomas perceives him. Tomas should be responsible for communicating the word of God to his parishioners, such as Jonas, but is himself silent due to his crisis of faith. As is often the case in Bergman's films, communication--with a focus on the face--is crucial. This comes across especially well as Tomas reads Marta's letter, and we get the words she writes him directly from her as she speaks into the camera, her eyes staring out into ours, inviting (or daring) us into making that leap of faith that comes from genuinely listening to someone. It is hard to look into the eyes of another when they talk with you, because it makes you vulnerable; and Tomas avoids declaring his love for Marta for these reasons, because he is closed off. So the question becomes in Winter Light whether it is God who is silent or Tomas who cannot hear. When Tomas eagerly awaits his conversation with Jonas, it is not as much to convince him of God's benevolence and reassure him, but so that he may himself have someone to confess his doubts unto. And after this declaration of the irrationality of God, after Jonas leaves, the titular "winter light" streams through the window panes--as if an acknowledgement of God's correspondence--but Tomas doesn't notice; he is turned away from the light, absorbed in his own fear.
Something else I find exceptional about Winter Light--as a Bergman film--is that many of his regular players play against the type of other readily identifiable roles that they have played. Max von Sydow will always recall his bold, charismatic characters, not least of which is Antonius Block from The Seventh Seal--but here he plays an anxious, even frightened man, desperate at the possibility of nuclear war purported by the newspapers. His wife, Karin, is played by Gunnel Lindblom, and is a homely but honest woman; contrast this with her earthy, pagan intensity as Ingeri from The Virgin Spring or her lascivious sexuality as Anna from The Silence, and you see a completely different woman. Even the star of Winter Light, Gunnar Björnstrand, had often played characters endowed with wittiness and scholarly glibness, such as Jöns in The Seventh Seal or Dr. Vergerus in The Magician; but Tomas is a quiet man who rarely asks outward questions, only inward, and is unsure and unsmiling, stricken with melancholy. This casting speaks to the actors' versatility, true, but for Bergman aficionados (as I consider myself), it also gives the sense that there is a pervading sense of unease and that kind of off-balancing sensation adds an extra layer of depth to the feeling of despair and the encompassing dread that accompanies it. Other works of film and media that have attempted to tackle God's relevance in our lives as well as the existence of God are not always handled with deference to those with faith. But while Bergman's body of work has often dealt with the silence of God, Winter Light is neither sardonic nor irreverent. The events surrounding Tomas' crisis and the results of his faltering faith and his failings in his role as a priest have ironic and devastating consequences, true. But Bergman does not condemn religion in his tale; the question he poses is whether we are prepared to listen when the crucial communications that will have the most important impact on our soul come to us, be they from God, from our loved ones, or from our very soul.
Recommended for: Fans of contemplative chamber pieces of drama, theological and philosophical adepts, and those looking for a cathartic tale of self-reproach and resolving a sense of powerlessness. And, just to add, Winter Light may be my favorite film by my favorite director, so take that for what it's worth.