The Silence

Last night's eighth film in the Seattle Art Museum's current Bergman film series, The Silence, the most enigmatic film of the series so far, was perhaps the film that has received the most searching analysis and critical attention.

"Silence" itself becomes almost a major member of the cast.  The first two-thirds of the film contains only fragmentary dialogue, leaving the viewer to interpret on his own the striking visual images and fevered interactions between the three principal members of the cast.   Even after hearing the increased dialogue toward the end of the film that helped explain the "plot,"  I was left with conflicting ideas about what Bergman intended.

The Silence was released in 1963.  Despite its opaqueness, it was highly rated by critics and received an impressive box office in the United States.  Its popularity with the public was undoubtedly helped by several sex scenes -- scenes that are not graphic and that do not seem shocking by today's standards, but that were not something one would find in American movies at that time.

Bergman has said that he experimented with using a musical rather than typical dramatic structure for the movie.  He turned especially to Béla Bartók for inspiration: a "dull continuous note, then the sudden explosion."

The plot, such as it is, deals with two sisters (Ester and Anna) traveling together by train through a fictitious eastern or central European country, accompanied by Anna's ten-year-old son Johan.  They are returning from a vacation that all had hoped to enjoy; it apparently had not gone well.  The country appears on a war footing, or maybe actually involved in a war.  The train passes long lines of tanks, planes fly overhead, soldiers are in the streets, explosions occur.  The war is never explained.  Neither sister pays any attention to the war.  Only Johan looks on wide-eyed.

Ester, the older sister, is formidably intellectual and scholarly; she is also approaching death from a serious lung disease.  Anna is hot-headed, emotional, angry, impulsive.  The two sisters attempt for some time to act correctly in each other's presence.  But the hostility between them crackles like electricity.

Anna tells Ester, near the end of the film, that she had once idolized her older sister, impressed by her achievements and by her rigid moral code.  Now, she is disgusted by Ester's pretensions, and by her own former submissiveness.  Ester acts cool and rational.  Until she doesn't.  It appears that she has long relied for self-esteem on Anna's affection and respect.  An incestuous lesbian relationship is hinted at, but nothing is made specific.

Because of Ester's acute illness, they interrupt their train journey home, to rest at an impressive nineteenth century hotel in the war torn country.  Anna has cabin fever.  She goes out onto the streets and picks up a waiter.  Ester feels betrayed and abandoned.  She says she feels "humiliated." Until the final scenes, their hostility is played out almost silently, by gesture and intonation.

Johan is the go-between, loving both his mother and his aunt.  If we put aside the possible existential and theological allegories that the story somehow suggests to many -- and look on the movie as a simple story about real human beings -- it is Johan one cares about, not either of the angry sisters.  Johan is a silent spectator.  He sees everything, but understands only in part.  His mother, affectionate but neglectful, leaves him alone as much as she can, as she wanders the streets and cafes.  Even when she's in the hotel, she and her sister argue behind closed doors.

Johan wanders the halls -- reminiscent of the endless halls in The Shining -- all alone.  An ancient hall porter befriends him.  A squad of dwarfs -- yes, Fellini-esque dwarfs -- wander about, amazing him and playing with him.  The sounds of war echo outside the windows.  Johan's a lost boy, curious but lonely.

Ester appears near death, experiencing one frightening coughing seizure after another.  She's terrified of dying alone, far from home.  She hates the life she's led, a life of attempted pure rationality and principled morality, but a life that avoided connection with others.  "We try out attitude, and find them all worthless.  The forces are too strong.  I mean the forces ... the horrible forces."  Anna and Johan come in to say goodbye.  They're taking the next train home, leaving Ester in the hotel.  Johan hugs Ester, and Ester gives him a letter she's been trying to write to him throughout the film.

In the final scene, on the train, Johan quietly pulls out the letter to read.  He seems silently happy.  The letter's contents aren't disclosed.  The movie ends abruptly.

It's been suggested that Ester represents the certainties of traditional European civilization, and that Anna represents the chaos and disorganization of the post-war generation.  Anna seems to have won, but the letter from Ester provides hope: She has passed her values onto the future, represented by the young boy.

Maybe.  Why not?  It's as good a theory as any that I could think up myself.  It's a confusing movie, but it was one worth watching,  if for no other reason but that I can't get it out of my mind.

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The Silence is often considered the final film of a trilogy, along with Through a Glass Darkly (shown last week) and Winter Light.  Bergman has said that the three films did form a sort of trilogy, but he sensed the relation between them only in retrospect. 

The boy Johan was played by 12-year-old Jörgen Lindström, who also played a role three years later in Persona, to be shown next week as the final film of this SAM series.  According to Wikipedia, he would now be 66 but no one knows where he is or anything of his later life.