Ingmar Bergman Centennial: THE SILENCE

Director: Ingmar Bergman

1963, Sweden, 95

Screenwriter: Ingmar Bergman

Cast: Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, Jörgen Lindström.

 

(Tystnaden) Two sisters—the sickly, intellectual Ester (Ingrid Thulin) and the sensual, pragmatic Anna (Gunnel Lindblom)—travel by train with Anna’s young son Johan (Jörgen Lindström) to a foreign country seemingly on the brink of war. Attempting to cope with their alien surroundings, the sisters resort to their personal vices while vying for Johan’s affection, and in so doing sabotage any hope for a future together. Regarded as one of the most sexually provocative films of its day, Bergman’s The Silence offers a disturbing vision of emotional isolation in a suffocating spiritual void.