Cries & Whispers - Criterion Collection | Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan

Cries & Whispers - Criterion Collection | Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan | Superb

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Cries & Whispers -...

	Cries & Whispers - Criterion Collection Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan Criterion, 2001 average customer review:based on 57 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Woman's World

This is an expose of the feelings women have when they are by themselves or in a stifling relationship. All of these women are gentle creatures who have formed an alliance for themselves. Their husbands are unable to understand the agonies their wives go through. The man is aloof in this picture. Bergman has always understood women and shown them as the agonized yet nurturing angels of all of our dreams. One of the women goes mad when she can't feel and resorts to pain for sensation. Her husband sees her performing this act and merely shrugs and walks out the door. Such power in a film is very gripping to the viewer. The best I can say is that this film blows away the mind and gives it meat for thought. Bergman succeeds again.

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Superb

Of Bergman's films, Cries and Whispers is his second best. Persona should still be considered the director's greatest acheivement and I am hoping that it will soon make an appearance in the Criterion Collection. But this in one of the best movies ever made. Very few films can be so completely devoid of humor and compell the viewer to watch as intently. (Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc comes to mind as another). The story centers around the death of Agnes and her memories, as well as the lives of her two sisters. To say that Bergman is an actor's director is an understatement. Liv Ullman gives a performance on par with the one turned in on Persona. Every actor in the movie, for that matter, gives a great performance. Sven Nykvist's cinematography is astounding. Soft dissolves to red bubble up on the screen to accent the internal strife of the characters. A clock ticks achingly slow to perpetuate strife and highlight the temporality of life. This movie is truly sad in a way that is real--not culled from some cheap sentimentality. I would not even consider watching this movie if you are emotionally unstable.
Criterion has done wonderful work with the transfer. I thought the video version looked pretty good; this version blows me away with its beauty. It offers the option of watching the movie in dubbed or subtitled version. The dubbing is very good. Bergman directed the dubbing in English and had the original actors dub their parts. This is truly a movie where pictures and colors tell the story, and watching it in the dubbed format allows one to focus on the images a little more. Excellent. Well worth the money. I would always like to have a commentary throw in, and a lot of Criterion films do, but this does not take away from the excellence of this edition.

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Cinema's Most Haunting Gem

While Cries and Whispers may be only my second favorite film--I can't decide which I like more, this film or Wild Strawberries--it is definitely the most haunting cinematic experience I've ever had. I watch this film on average once every week or two and it is as stunning at the 20th viewing as at the first. The ensemble performances by the four actresses, the matchless cinematography by Sven Nykvist, and the emotions evoked by Bergman's script make for a peerless film experience. One viewing of Cries and Whispers will up the ante in your film repertoire. Cannot possibly recommend this enough.

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Yes, It's a Horror Movie

"Cries and Whispers" came out around the same time as "The Exorcist" and that was serendipitous timing. Because both films are concerned with ultimate questions of eternity and are designed to explore those questions in intensely disturbing ways. Bergman has been a great director of horror films when he wants to be; check out "The Seventh Seal", "The Virgin Spring" (the original source for "Last House on the Left"), "The Magician", "The Silence" (which could be a lost David Lynch film.) "Cries and Whispers" takes its detour into the macabre after the death of the sister, in scenes so haunting they can't really be described. Just see it for yourself. "Cries and Whispers" is a very great film, and a bone-chiller too.

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BERGMAN'S "CRIES AND WHISPERS"

A dying woman is surrounded by her sisters in a Swedish mansion at the turn of the 19th Century. I can't recall a movie death being as cruel as the one pictured here with the dying sister gasping and pleading into oblivion. Bergman's statement on the wasted measures of our lives is a glorified 'stop and smell the roses' morality tale, deeply depressing, meticulously filmed, and irresistibly haunting.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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