Ingmar Bergman's 1972 film VISKNINGAR OCH ROP (Cries and Whispers) was one of the auteur's major achievements of that decade. In a Swedish country house, the dying Agnes (Harriet Andersson) is visited by her two sisters, the sensual and impulsive Karin (Ingrid Thulin), and the stern and frigid Maria (Liv Ullmann). Though ostensibly there to comfort Agnes in her last days, they are essentially just waiting for her to die, as they are more preoccupied with their unhappy marriages, their mysterious personal feud, and the specifics of dividing up the estate. It falls to Agnes' devoted maid Anna (Kari Sylwan) to provide any human warmth. One of the most emotionally touching aspects of the film is this contrast between the selfless love of a member of a despised underclass and the indifference (or outright disgust) expressed by Agnes' own family.Bergman had made the transition to colour film with EN PASION of three years earlier, but VISKNINGAR OCH ROP finally exploits its possibilities. Red is ever present on screen, whether in the red wing of the house in which Agnes lies dying, the red transitions between scenes, or the vivid blood that flows in each of the sisters' flashbacks to the decay of their marriages. Sven Nykvist's cinematography is, as always, brilliant. And though one doesn't often think of the makeup artist in a Bergman film, whoever worked on this one deserves praise for making such a glamorous actress as Harriet Andersson (still in her late 30s then and quite glamorous) look convincingly decrepit.Bergman considered VISKNINGAR OCH ROP one of his two greatest films, along with 1966's PERSONA. I must confess, however, that I have never ranked it so highly. While PERSONA continues to amaze me on every viewing, VISKNINGAR OCH ROP does tend to exhaust its overt symbolism and interpersonal dynamics right away, and I rarely come back to it. Furthermore, I feel Bergman wove too much of this film out of what had become stock gestures for him, such as incestuous siblings, and a man speaking about the need to trust God when he himself has lost faith.

When a woman (Harriet Andersson) dying of cancer in early twentieth-century Sweden is visited by her two sisters, long-repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.It was for the saturated color and light scheme that cinematographer Sven Nykvist was awarded the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The picture has five nominations in all, including Best Picture, which is quite a feat for a foreign film.Bergman, despite a whole list of great films to his credit, had trouble financing the picture. Ultimately, to save costs, the main actresses and Nykvist gave their salary as a loan and were nominally co-producers. As such, depending on how their contracts were worded, they may have come out far ahead in the process.Most interestingly, the film could not find US distribution because it was (again) deemed to be "not commercial" (which may be fair). Thus, by pure chance, this highly acclaimed picture fell in the lap of Roger Corman, who had just started his own distribution company (New World). Corman paid Bergman $75,000 for it and made $1 million in profit, which no doubt went to finance future Corman projects. This may be the single most artistic film ever associated with Corman, and surely the highest-rated.

I lived in Manhattan when "Cries and Whispers" was released in theaters and remember how the New York intelligentsia were all over this film. I guess it had some shock value at the time. Revisiting it forty years later, I find it boring, shallow and fatally lacking in humor. Filled with talk and solemn posturing that ultimately leads nowhere, the final flashback scene is scant reward for all the Sturm und Drang that preceded it. I even think Sven Nykvist's acclaimed cinematography looks dated. There are numerous clumsy zooms, the painterly tableaux look self-conscious and forced, and the fades to red were done eight years previously by Robert Burks for Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie." Viewers would have to be as masochistic as Ingrid Thulin's character to enjoy this pretentious gabfest.

Another great film that you shouldn't watch if you are feeling down or depressed. There is no happy ending, no "bright side," or feeling that the movie will pick up. I believe this movie is not the typical Hollywood 3 act structure. There was nothing that was looking like things were looking up. It was as if you were in a family's most troublesome time. There were themes of salvation and redemption in certain characters. I felt that each character was well thought out and carefully used to further the story along to show the audience who they truly were and their fears. That being said, this films composition is so beautiful.