1960 Winner, The Virgin Spring

The Virgin Spring

Director:        Ingmar Bergman

Distributed by:  Janus Films

Released:  February 1960

Country:  Sweden

If Ingmar Bergman were a director-for-hire today, and Lifetime approached him to do a TV movie for them, The Virgin Spring, the 1960 Best Foreign Film, would be what he would come up with.  Lifetime is known for putting out movies with soap-opera-style plots that include sex, and usually violence that is somehow related to the sex.  The Virgin Spring doesn’t feature some model in high heels murdering some face man for dumping her to be with his perfect wife, but the sex and violence are sure there.  The difference is, The Virgin Spring includes philosophy, thoughts on God, and commentary on society’s imposition of the feelings of guilt.  Those kinds of themes are generally not found in movies like, My Stepson, My Lover or The Babysitter’s Seduction—at least I didn’t pick up anything like that during my multiple viewings.

Töre and his golden-haired daughter, Karin

The Virgin Spring is also a period piece, set in 13^th century Sweden.  Töre, played by Bergman favorite Max von Sydow, is the head of a very Christian family, and a rather well-off one at that.  Töre has a young, pretty daughter named Karin that he spoils to some degree, at least as much as you can spoil a girl in 13^th century Sweden.  She is, in relation to the title, the virgin of the story.  One morning, Töre sends Karin to take candles to the closest Christian church, some miles away.  She is happy to do it.

Going with her will be Ingeri, the servant girl who lives with the family.  Ingeri is for sure not a virgin, obviously somewhere in the middle of a pregnancy by someone we don’t know, and probably neither does anyone else.  Behind the scenes, we see Ingeri praying to the Norse god Odin, not for anything nice but for a little disaster of some kind to fall upon Karin.  Clearly, Ingeri is a little jeal of her blonde friend and her life on the primrose path.

Riding up to the church on horseback, Ingeri and Karin part ways, which is not the greatest idea. 

The herdsmen:  They seem nice.

Then again, it isn’t nearly as dumb as when Karin runs into three goat herds and asks them if they want to join her for some cucumber sandwiches her mother packed with her for the ride.  A couple of the gentlemen look at Karin with the yellow hair like she’s a cup of cold water in the Sahara.  In a very tense, well-shot scene, two of the men take advantage of the situation in a sexually violent way.  Ingeri, though, is nearby, hiding and watching the whole thing, feeling really like she wished she hadn’t said that prayer to Odin at the beginning of the day.  I’ll leave it there in terms of specifics, but we will again see old Töre, and so will the herdsmen. 

Like with 1961’s Best Foreign Film, Through a Glass Darkly, also directed by Bergman, this simple plot is full of things to think on.  Töre is a good Christian man, but what how will he react when he learns about his precious daughter?  Ingeri truly wished evil on Karin, but hey, she didn’t mean it, so what is her responsibility?  What will happen to the goatherds?  And who is Ingeri’s baby’s father? 

Ingeri and Karin:  Feel the love.

The Virgin Spring is no cheap exploitation film, regardless of what the plot may sound like.  The acting is terrific, and the pacing of the film feels just right.  There is something almost artificial about the scenic design, as if the story is just a parable or a fable being told.  That underscores the presumption that this film has themes and ideas to ruminate on.  And if Bergman would have just left that aspect out of it, I’m sure he could have pitched it as a featured Lifetime movie of the week.

The Title:  Jungfrukällan.  We are talking about a spring coming out of the ground, not the time of year.  The title is from a Swedish ballad from about the time of the setting of the story.  The lyrics include the chilling lines:

They met three highwaymen:

"You either be highwaymen's wives,

Or would you lose your young lives?"

The culture:  The theme that stuck out to me was that of Christianity versus paganism in medieval times.  Which is greater?  I think Bergman is attempting to answer that question at a very basic level in the film, but in a broader context philosophically.

Agenda danger:  This one would make a good PSA-type film for the dangers of letting your kids out too long, even if they are just out delivering candles to a church.

Best Picture that year:  The Apartment

Rating:  A simple story with great acting.  Bergman doesn’t get too fancy, like the likes of Fellini, yet the material is as heady the Italian’s.  Bergman himself called this “a wretched imitation of Kurosawa,” most specifically of the Japanese director’s philosophical parable Rashomon, 1951’s Best Foreign Film.  He’s wrong.  This is no Rashomon, but it should be seen as a classic in its own right.

1961 Winner, Through a Glass Darkly

Through a Glass Darkly

Director:        Ingmar Bergman

Distributed by:  Janus Films

Released:  October 1961

Country:  Sweden

The idea of a family vacation can often be far superior to an actual family vacation.  Someone gets the idea that it will be great to spend days together in a little cottage near the water somewhere to get away from the pressures and boredom of regular life at home.  A lot of the time, the vacation is just what was needed, but going home to sleep in one’s own bed is a concept that should not be underestimated.  There is something confining about spending time in a little house with people who don’t have jobs to go to or errands to run.  A week in a cabin isolated from the rest of the world might just lead to a bit of craziness.

In Through a Glass Darkly, 1961’s Best Foreign Film by legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, we have a family of four off on a getaway to remote island to spend some quality time together.  There indeed is craziness, but the kind that existed before this get-together and goes deeper than a few days of isolation. 

Martin (Max von Sydow) and Karin (Harriet Andersson)

The family consists of four:  There is the father, David, who is a novelist and an absentee dad always away working.  There is his son, Minus, who has an inferiority complex that reflects his unfortunate name.  David’s friend Martin is with them, a man roughly David’s age but married to David’s daughter, Karin, who initially seems like the stabilizer in the family, but in reality is certainly not. 

The four of them joke around and make conversation like any family would at the start of spending time together.  Things get a little dicey when Minus, who is an aspiring writer, and Karin put on a play for the other two.  It's something Minus wrote with the thinly-veiled message that Minus thinks Dad is a bigtime jerk.  David has a hard time relating to his kids and only shares his deepest feelings with his friend Martin, played by Max von Sydow (who also stars in 1983’s Pelle the Conqueror, and the soon to be reviewed The Virgin Spring).  Cryptically, they discuss Karin’s previous illness. 

The Exorcist:  Max von Sydow has had to deal with worse

And Karin’s illness is the center of the film.  It seems she is having difficulty keeping a grip on reality, and things don’t look promising that she will get better.  And perhaps because she is a key relationship for each of the three men around her, things don’t really look promising for this family.  Even though Karin’s mental illness is the subject, to me the real story is how it affects the other family members, both tragically and with an ounce of hope.

Through a Glass Darkly is a talky film, centering on the individual relationships within the family and how the family exists as a unit.  But this is an Ingmar Bergen movie, so the subject matter is much broader than a summary of the film would provide—like in Fanny and Alexander, Bergman's 1983 Best Foreign Film winner (released in 1982), religious themes abound, carefully woven into the story and into the characters.   In the end, though this family endures the tragedy that mental illness can bring, since a God exists, there is always hope that will endure.

The Title:  Såsom i en spegel, which literally means, “as in a mirror.”  The title is a reference to 1Corinthians 13, “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.”  This is from the “love” epistle of Paul, frequently used at weddings, with the chapter ending with: “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Things often go wrong on a family vacation

The culture:  The movie is set on Fårö, a Swedish island popular to vacationers and a location to a number of Bergman films.  The island may be quite beautiful, but the black and white photography makes it appear stark and devoid of warmth, reflective of the family and of the mental illness that isolates Karin.

Agenda danger:  The movie is grim, but the message is less so.  In some ways, mental illness is not only confined to the daughter, but to the entire family, both individually and as a group.  But the relationships survive, and especially redeeming is the final conversation between Minus and his father.

Best Picture that year:  West Side Story

Rating:  The film is essentially a three-act play with lots of dialogue and little action, and if you go into this understanding that, I think it is quite good and thought-provoking.  A nice short little film by a master director.