Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

Wonderful Movie

Absolutely Fantastic

Absolutely Brilliant!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Karin (Harriet Andersson) has recently been released from an asylum having undergone electroconvulsive therapy. She returns to her isolated family home and rejoins her father, writer David (Gunnar Björnstrand), teenage brother Minus (Lars Passgård) and husband Martin (Max von Sydow), with whom she has an awkward sexual relationship. In fact, she seems more flirtatious with Minus, who is confused by his feelings for her. Unable to sleep one night, she finds and reads David's notes about her 'incurable' condition, and his desire to record her 'disintegration.'This is a Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman in bitingly bleak black and white. The only cast are the four characters, and the only setting is their remote island home, which Bergman manages to make both idyllic and claustrophobic at the same time. Karin's decline is slow, and she is lucid enough to be tortured by it.Also tortured of course, are those around her. There is an impotence about Karin's family, as quite clearly they do not know how to handle the prospect of her instability - but in the case of David, has his detachment contributed to Karin's inability to relate to her own husband? Or has she always been unreachable? We never know, despite the very talky nature of the production (and the English subtitles). The fact that Karin's condition seems to be the reason Minus and his father finally grow close is scant reason for celebration.People are flawed.A very intense, open-ended study in human behaviour.

One unfortunate after-effect of the film is that an impressionable viewer who has a mentally ill relative might be misled into thinking that such friend or relative will inevitably deteriorate as rapidly and drastically as Karin did. However , even if "Karin" was a real person, there would be hope for her from the medical atandpoint, regardless of whether the other people in her life finally realized that they had given her the "wrong" kind of love (Through a glass darkly--thhe whole implication of that is "flawed love" and it is only at the end that the father and brother realize this). But remember the movie was made in 1961 and only a few years later there came the revolution in psychopharmacology, starting with Thorazine and then Lithium and then Klonopin and many many cases which would have "rotted away hallucinating or turned into zombie like catatonia have now recovered and are OUT of hospital with families and even jobs. Remember Karin referred to shock treatments. Today that only happens in very very extreme cases in hospitals (some wealthy patients have had it out-patient as a quick fix for depression rather than spend time in patient) but lobotomy and some of the "treatments" used in the 1950s have largely gone the way of the dodo. IAs to Karin, I believe that Martin was short-sighted in not going away with Karin after talking to the father on the boat and realizing the "coldness" of the father's detachment , even though it was an emotional defense. But that points up Martin's fallibility and the "flaw" in his own love---he couldn't do more than treat her as a sick pet to whom he was still attached in sympathy. Anyone who wants to write privately about "new hope" for mental illness is welcome to write me privately at [email protected] since this is moving beyond the scope of a movie plot

This "chamber film" by Ingmar Bergman (whose name is a quote in the Christian bible) has just four characters: a writer (Gunnar Bjornstrand), his schizophrenic daughter Karin (Harriet Andersson), Karin's husband, Martin (Max von Sydow) and Karin's teenage brother, Minus (Lars Passgard). With the exception of Passgard, all the other three are Bergman regulars, having appeared in many of his films.The movie happens in a single day period in an isolated island, and it's basically about how Karin goes from being relatively normal at the beginning to absolutely crazy 24 hours later, and the reaction of the three people around her. The Bjornstrand character, for instance, feels guilty about his daughter madness, though we now know that upbringing has little influence on mental illness. Also, her descent into madness is so rapid during the movie (though we are told that she has been in a mental institution before) that perhaps is not very believable. Also hard to accept are the solemn lines the characters spout about the "silence of God". Of course, many people have thoughts about existential issues like this, they just don't talk about them in such solemn manner. Of all the major directors Bergman was the one whose background in the theater was more obvious. In some of his movies, like this one, this stage background makes a little more of "noise".So this is a worthwhile film, but not in my opinion among Bergman's best: At about the same time he did with Bjornstrand Winter Light which is somewhat lesser known, perhaps, but far better.

No doubt Bergman finest work from my point of view till date. "We draw a magic circle and shut out everything that doesn't agree with our secret games. Each time life breaks the circle, the games turn gray and ridiculous. Then we draw a new circle and build a new defense. "how his creativity come from.ONLY GOD KNOWS IF EXIST Or HE IS . Fredrik: Father, I'm scared. When I was hugging Karin in the boat, reality was revealed. Do you know what I mean? David: I do. Fredrik: Reality was revealed, and I collapsed. It's like a dream. Anything can happen. Anything. David: I know. Fredrik: I can't live in this new world. David: Yes, you can. But you must have a support. Fredrik: What kind of support? You mean a God? Give me a proof of his existence. You can't. David: I can. But you gotta pay attention to what I say. Fredrik: Yes. I need to listen. David: I can only tell you a thought of my own hopes. It is to know that love exists for real in the human world. Fredrik: A sort of special love, I suppose? David: All kinds of it. The bigger and the smaller, the most absurd one and the most sublime one. All kinds of love. Fredrik: What about the desire for love? David: Desire and denying. Trust and distrust. Fredrik: Then love is the proof? David: I don't know if love is the proof of God's existence or if it's God itself. Fredrik: To you, love and God are the same thing. David: That thought makes me feel less empty; Makes my desperation less worse. Fredrik: Go on, dad. David: All of a sudden, emptiness turns into abundance, and desperation turns into life. It's like a temporary death's sentence strike. Fredrik: Dad... if it's like how you say it is, then God is all over Karin. We love her so much. David: Yes. Fredrik: Can't that help her? David: I think so.