Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

Through a Glass Darkly (1961) (Sasom I En Spegel)

Through a Glass Darkly is a very dark and deep film made by Ingmar Bergman, one of the best artists in film.

As many of Ingmar Bergman’s films, Through a Glass Darkly is more of artwork than your average film. There are many things that were brought together to make this film as beautiful as it was. The acting is fantastic, especially from Harriet Andersson. The music, when its there, is so subtle but adds so much. The writing and directing shows why Bergman is seen as one of the greatest, the deep themes of love and God, the emotion he’s able to create between people, etc. The cinematography also adds so much to the film though seems so minimal, it’s dark and realistic. When matched up with the directing it creates some beautiful images, such as when Karin and Martin are holding each other in the boat.

****spoilers****

At the end of the film David says he doesn’t know if loves proves that God exists or if love is god himself. David has learned that he has thrown love away to become a writer and feels guilty. It’s an important line in the film, it sort of explains Karin’s hallucinations of seeing God. Her hallucinations of people waiting for “Him” to show up, everyone’s waiting for him patiently, but she isn’t as patient. If God is love, and love is what she is missing and needs, she has to imagine love is coming, she has to imagine God is coming. This might be why Karin doesn’t “see God” until the end, after Minus try’s to show his love (through sex?) she finally has the vision that God comes in. God is a spider who tries to go into her and “penetrate” her, which is the way the Minus tried to show his love (possibly the only way he knows how, from looking at pornography).

We have seen throughout the film that both Karin and Minus are missing love, which is probably one of the main reasons they (most likely) had sex. We already knew Minus is somewhat sexually repressed or confused and has no one around him, and Karin also has her father who is never around and her husband seems to treat her more like a patient than a wife, except when he wants sex. The siblings are drawn together because the other one is the only one that shows them any kind love, as David said “all kinds” of love. “the highest, the lowest, the most absurd and the most sublime,” “longing and denial.” All these kinds of love could be god. And I think this one could definitely fit under absurd.

The final line of “papa spoke to me” shows how much the little things mattered. His father opening up to him and talking to him was enough to make him happy.

At the end when Karin is flown back to the hospital and David learns that he has been shutting himself off and Minus finally feeling cared for makes it a rather hopeful ending.

However, the film still seems more depressing overall. A girl who is going crazy, hearing voices and waiting to see God, a boy who is left alone and depressed, and their father who abandons them for fame. The two need to find love or sex in their own way, whether it’s hallucinating, looking at pornography or even finding it in each other. Leave it to someone like Bergman to make incest kind of beautiful.

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The film is depressing, powerful, beautiful, dark, deep, and a little disturbing.

If you are a fan of Ingmar Bergman this film is a must. I can see some people being bored by this film if they aren’t into artsy, black and white, foreign films, but everyone should try to watch it, because it’s honestly a masterpiece. Not Bergman’s highest rated film but definitely fantastic.

9/10