THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Ingmar Bergman Starring: Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow, Lars Passgård
Bergman opens "Through a Glass Darkly" not only with a quote from Second Corinthians, from which the title comes, but also has a dedication title, made out to his then wife. The two are separated from one another, but as the film goes on, and begins to explore concepts brought on by the Bible quote, as well as ideas about family and love, the ideas these two subtexts bring up begin to merge into one singular idea, and instead of both trying to work as two separate ideas in the film, they intertwine with one another. But of course, that's one of Bergman's fortes.
"Through a Glass Darkly" is actually a combination of many things that normally don't fit together except here: it's a debate on God and love, and an intense dysfunctional family drama; it concerns itself with a small quantity of people secluded on an island, like many Bergman films, but then makes them family members, also like many Bergman films; and it tosses in several parallel action shots where one consists of lots of editing, and the other features just one long take, throwing off the rhythm of the film. It's almost a wonder that it works at all.
But for all of this, "Through a Glass Darkly" is another very trite film from Bergman, running about 91 minutes, and featuring only a couple very long sequences, and features almost total dialogue and monologues, causing it to be able to cover so much ground and so many concepts that it almost seems overloaded. The film deals with a family of four who take a "vacation" on a secluded island: there's the father, David (Gunnar Björnstrand), a writer who has distanced himself from his family; the son, Minus (Lars Passgård), a wannabe playright who resents his father, sometimes openly; the daugher, Karin (Hariett Andersson), who has just gotten out of a mental institution, and is on the cusp of a relapse; and her devoted husband, Martin (Max Von Sydow...yes, the guy from "The Exorcist"), who tries to be the buffer of the bunch.
Bergman effortlessly defines each of their characters in the first 10 minutes so that the rest of the film can take off from the exposition, and into its rising action. One thing that bugs me about many film is the exposition, and how films try to blatantly give us all our information in sometimes clumsy ways. Bergman avoids all of that, expertly writing the screenplay so that all of the information is given to us subtlely, sometimes just through idle conversation. This also gives us the right amount of distance from the characters, as they aren't communicating with us at all, and shows how distanced they all are from one another, whether they like it or not.
About half way through, Bergman introduces a really bizarre plot twist: Karin begins to hear voices from the wall in one of the upstairs rooms telling her that it's God. Is she having a relapse? is it really God? We don't know (for awhile). But it begins to speed up her relapse, and the result brings out one of Bergman's favorite themes: families being brought together by something horrible that makes them re-evaluate their relationships.
What was Bergman trying to point out with all of this? He brings us two things that usually don't work together - a family drama about a lack of communication and love, and a story of a woman who thinks she sees God - but Bergman actually manages to pull them both together, like I said. He explores the existence of God as something you have to merely have faith in but can never have any proof of by exploring the family's lack of stability and love. Their lack of stability is on a parallel with the lack of stability in knowing if God exists or not.
As good as it is, it does run into a couple minor problems. The film is probably too short, running at a tawdry 91 minutes, resulting in a bit of a lack of family drama that the film needs a little more of. Luckily Bergman is able to make up substantially for this by leaving a lot unsaid through dialogue, and much done through action and scene set-ups, but he isn't able to make up totally for this slight inconsistency. The film is also very uneven, spending a small amount of time on the exposition, but then getting a little sloppy with the amount of time he spends on each section of the film. And the final scene explains a little too much - maybe some dialogue editing would have been good in this scene. The entire film could have used a whole other draft, just to even out some of the little clinks in the storyline.
However, you really have to appreciate how much this film pulls off as it is. Any film that can explore lack of faith in God's existence through a tense family drama is worthy of high praise, and the film has a great play-like feel, abandoning a lot of character action and instead focusing on studying its characters' feelings and pains while still exploring such an existential theme. And it wisely never picks one character to single out as the "protagonist," appropriately distancing us from the characters who are distanced from one another, and allowing us to empathize more with the situation than the characters. Sure, it could use a rewrite, but that would only make it slighly better than it already is.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
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