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Nattvardsgästerna (1962)

Director: Ingmar Bergman

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From Time Out Film Guide

The middle part of Bergman's trilogy about God's silence - it is flanked by Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence - and the most austere, Winter Light focuses on a small group of parishioners found at the beginning of the film attending Holy Communion. The village pastor (Björnstrand) is realising he has become an atheist since his wife's death. His faith is further tested by an offer of marriage from a schoolteacher (Thulin) tortured with eczema, and the solace demanded by a man (von Sydow) suicidally depressed by the threat of nuclear war. The pastor fails on both counts, and Bergman gives us an ambiguous ending back in the church service - what he himself called 'certainty unmasked'. Never a comfortable film, it's finely acted by a familiar Bergman ensemble, and the awesomely cold vistas form a perfect counterpoint to the spiritual freeze.

Author: DT 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Mar 05 2008 20:56 Trilogy1;Centrepiece:Winter Light
This Pastor, Tomas Ericsonn, has lost his faith and we see him going through the motions in a service. This film is the centrepiece of the trilogy on faith. The film is beautifully yet rigorously shot taking into account the light falling into the church interior. His wife has been dead 4 years and his congregation is small. There is also a sextant, an organist and Marta, a schoolteacher who has no belief
but loves the Minister. He is unable to return her love. He is also unable to help one of his parishioners, Jonas (Sydow) the fisherman, who seeks his help, due to his fear for the future of the world, with the Chinese hatred for the West and the Atomic bomb. Jonas is married to Karin who is pregnant and has 3 children. Tomas cannot reassure his disturbed thoughts, merely sharing his doubts about God with him, i.e. the silence of God. Later he hears that Jonas has gone down to the river and shot himself in the head. He attends the body until it is taken away.
There is an impressive scene in the church when the Pastor looks out of the church window and asks “Why has thou forsaken me?”
It is wise to remember this subject was dear to Bergman. His father had been a
Royal Pastor and Bergman had opposed his own strict upbringing. He had also asked his father to help him look around churches for this film and seen his father take over a communion service when the Pastor in one was ill. This is an extremely moving film. About the conflict between wanting to believe and simply not believing. Yet something, the love of others, their needs and beliefs lifts him up to go on in the last service we see at the end of the film.

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dollarjoohn said...

Posted on Sep 17 2007 15:38 LEET!

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