Nigel P 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.

ben hibburd Through A Glass Darkly is written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. It's the Third film on MUBI's retrospective jaunt through his filmography that i've so far watched. The film tells the story of Karin a young woman who's recovering on a small island with her husband and family after a stay in a mental hospital. As she tries to re-establish connections with her emotionally suppressed family, she begins to disconnect with reality and starts to believe she's being visited and spoken to by god.The film centres around four main characters, Karin(Harriet Andersson), her emotionally despondent father David(Gunnar Björnstrand), her husband Martin(Max Von Sydow) who's dealing with the inevitability of Karin's diagnosis not Improving. Finally Karin's younger brother Minus, whose going through adolescence questioning everything with no emotional support from his father.Through A Glass Darkly is a beautifully shot, serene piece of film- making. The film feels sedated in an idle state of tranquillity that carries through a tinge of melancholy. This makes for a fantastic look at the human mentality in all forms. As the audience delves deeper into what makes the characters tick, we look at their fears and Insecurities. This film is one of Bergman's tightest scripts. Every character is given equal screen time to be fleshed out and developed into characters with a- lot of depth. At only eighty five minutes long, the film runs at a brisk pace and flows naturally.The film gives an honest look at mental health, and how it effects Karin and those closest to her. The fact that this film was made at a time when approach to mental health wasn't given the seriousness it has in today's society, is all the more remarkable. Whilst this film film might not be in the upper echelons of Bergman's incredible filmography. It's quiet serenity and dreamlike sensibility gives this film a powerful radiance which makes Through A Glass Darkly essential viewing in Bergman's filmography.

ElMaruecan82 As usual with Ingmar Bergman's movies, the power of imagery, its meticulous attention on shadows and lightning have such an effect on eyes, a second viewing becomes an absolute necessity for the distracted mind, and the second effect is so mind-blowing, any use of words becomes pointless.Words and images, light and darkness, harmony lies in pair in Bergman's films and "Through a Glass Darkly" is no exception. The pairing pattern works for faces as the film rarely shows one person in the screen, always two. Four major protagonists are always interacting in pairs. We draw our personal circle, says David (Gunnar Björnstrand) to his young daughter Karyn (Harriett Anderson) in order to protect ourselves from the others' secret games, and when life breaks the circle, as a defensive mechanism, we build another one. Life is made of round-trips between illusion and reality.In an earlier scene, David is confronted to Martin, Karen's husband, played by Max Von Sydow. He told him that Karyn checked into his diary and found out his secret thoughts about her disease. Although never revealed, it's clearly implied that she suffers from schizophrenia, and they're all resting in Faro Island after she spent some time in a mental hospital. Karyn is normal on the surface, but her child-like behavior while she teases her younger brother Minus (Lars Passgård) arises our suspicions. She then explains that her hearing got more accurate, she's awaken up by noises of birds and animal, and is even capable to hear some voices speaking to her from a wallpaper and announcing the arrival of God. Karyn's life, so far, feels like a one-way ticket to a world of illusions.And according to Martin, Karyn's disease is 'relatively incurable'. What is 'relatively'? Is it a light of hope, a euphemism or God having pity of one of HIS firmest believers? Anyway, David only reacts as a writer; he sees an opportunity to fill his mental block, which Martin explicitly condemns. David can barely hide is guilt and his reactions sound like admittance. It's simply amazing how a simple conversation put answers to all the interrogation left in the set-up. Why is David so estranged to his family? Why, after a long trip to Switzerland, he plans another world-traveling period? It might be part of his situation as a successful author, but it doesn't fool anyone, these travels are his escape from reality. According to his personal vision, David drew his personal circle from his reluctance to face the reality of his daughter's sickness, of his boy's unease with the adult world. On the other hand, Martin, is the most compassionate and disinterested protagonist, although Karyn can't bring him sex and happiness, he loves her, and tries desperately to reach her, while witnessing the disintegration of her mental state. David, however, asks him whether he can control his inner feelings, to which Martin retorts that he's too simple and human for that. Is he? Wouldn't he secretly wish for her wife to die in peace, and put an end to a pointless anguish, and wish what would be more of an act of mercy from God?Bergman's started his 'chamber' trilogy with a film whose themes echo his eternal torments, not existential on a personal but on a binary level, how can two people understand each other's condition, how can one break the other's circle? But this is not a philosophizing film, for the simple reason that it is a film and film is an art of imagery and emotions. Bergman, a natural-born playwright, uses a family island, some rooms and an attic as the setting of people's torments. Examine some crucial scenes, two faces are on the screen, looking in different directions, both lit by lights from different sources, as if the source of one's truth was a secret impossible to reach.This device, from the cinematographer and genius Sven Nykvist would culminate with the iconic shots of Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullman half-faces forming one in "Persona". But if "Persona" showed that the line between two souls could be opened, it's this impenetrability that shows in "Through a Glass Darkly". And the narrative is mostly pessimistic on Karyn's case, she's not trapped in a circle, but has a foot in reality, and one in the 'other' one, from which some voices whisper and announce her the imminent intervention of God. This is perhaps one of the greatest enigmas that tormented Bergman, the filmmaker, the existence of God, and the alienating effect of the intellectual and emotional efforts to reach him. Maybe the secret is to find God within the world you exist in, rather than the outside world. Again, as painful and troubling as life is, it's still life. The movie ends with a heart-to-heart discussion between David and his son, both trying to find out the roots of salvation, how to get accommodated with reality. Maybe the essence of life is love, and this is where God must be found out. Love in the broadest meanings, from a brother, a father, a lover or a husband …it's all about approaching our vision of love. There are many interrogations left, notably a controversial moment between Karyn and Minus with many incestuous undertones. Maybe this was another misguided attempt to find love, in the most awkward way, something so unexplainable that even the Master explored it carefully, leaving up to us to see "through the glass", the magic class of his camera.One night, my wife wanted to play to a game of impossible choices. She asked me: what if I had the choice between fulfilling all my dreams, becoming an acclaimed and distinguished filmmaker but losing her love. Like in a Bergman film, my silence said so many words that no answer mattered anymore. I knew how David during that crucial boat ride… and this is how genuinely expert on human's deepest complexities, Ingmar Bergman is, on a universal level.

Jackson Booth-Millard Many of the films of director Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Cries and Whispers, Fanny and Alexander) appear in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and this Swedish film was another one I had heard the title of a few times. Basically on a small remote island for a vacation, schizophrenic Karin (BAFTA nominated Harriet Andersson) has recently been released from an asylum, her husband Martin (Max Von Sydow) believes that her condition is almost incurable, her brother Minus (Lars Passgård) feels neglected by his father because of his work getting more attention, and her novelist father David (Gunnar Björnstrand) is suffering "writer's block" and he is upset on any attack on his character. At night Karin refuses any erotic approach by Martin, with her psychological problems she thinks she hears strange noises and faints listening to weird voices, her father at night allows her to sleep in his room, but when David leaves the room with Minus she looks through her father's diary that her disease is incurable, and it seems he is callously hungry for all her deterioration details, perhaps to use for inspiration for a new novel. David and Martin go fishing the following morning and have a real conversation about Karin, the husband accuses the father being more interested in his art than his daughter, and the father agrees with most of his comments, he admits also that he attempted suicide by driving over a cliff, but he found loving his daughter, Minus and his son-in-law was what could keep him going and give him hope. Karin meanwhile opens up to Minus about the voices she believes she is hearing, sure that is God that will appear, he meanwhile is sexually frustrated and it is implied that she teases him, and perhaps while on the beach running into a shipwreck even sexually seduces her own brother, she later confesses these actions to her husband and father, she says that the voices told her to do them. A helicopter that will take Karin to the hospital is on it's way, because she has struggled long enough to remain in one of the two realities she has, she disappears in panic for a little while, but returns sedated, and she points out a spider that she claims is God visiting, Karin and Martin leave on the helicopter together, and Minus and David finally find the ability to bond as father and son, discussing the concept of love, their first real conversation. The performance of Anderssen does give an extraordinary performance as the woman slowly descending into madness, the supporting actors are very good too, including the always great Von Sydow, as they spend the time filled with curiosity and helplessness, the story is simple enough to follow, and really cemented the reputation for Bergman making films full of perhaps more doom and gloom than hope, but as with many of his films this is very gripping, an interesting drama. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and it was nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen for Ingmar Bergman, and it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film from any Source. Very good!