Ingmar Bergman’s Oscar-winning foreign language feature tells a straight-forward and brutal tale of rape, murder and revenge then in the last scene presents us with the vast theological and metaphysical questions that the story brings up. Bergman doesn’t try to present pat answers to these questions — only presents the tough questions.
Tore (Max von Sydow, THE EXORCIST) is a wealthy Christian living in Sweden during the Middle Ages. He and his wife Mareta (Birgitta Valberg, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT) dote over their beautiful, virginal daughter Karin (Birgitta Pettersson), which creates vicious jealousy in their secretly pagan foster child Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE), who is pregnant out of wedlock. Karin is given the task of traveling to the nearest church to deliver candles and asks if Ingeri may accompany her.
Along the way, Ingeri separates from Karin, who meets three haggard herdsmen brothers — the oldest is mute (Tor Isedal, THE SEVENTH SEAL), the middle (Axel Duberg, FANNY AND ALEXANDER) is manipulative and the youngest (Ove Porath) is really an innocent boy who just follows his siblings. Karin invites the hungry men to share her stack with her, which ends in her rape and murder. It is all the more disturbing to watch, because of the way the attack affects the young boy. Later, the herdsmen come upon the girl’s home and are invited to stay by Tore. After the middle herdsman offers to sell Karin’s bloodstained clothes to her mother, Tore is taken with grief and plots his revenge.
In the aftermath, Bergman presents the profound questions of why God allows evil to happen to innocent people, why humans are compelled to seek revenge to find peace and how evil tends to make people search for God more strongly. The final poetic moment adds a powerfully positive touch to an otherwise sad and depressing film. Though the film isn’t a horror film in the classical sense, one can easily see how the film influenced Wes Craven’s THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. It’s a truly horrible story.
The film also marks Bergman’s first full collaboration with famed cinematography Sven Nykvist, whose brilliant use of black & white and a provocative sense of framing became an integral part of Bergman’s style from this point on. In VIRGIN, Nykvist is able to use the spacing in his frame to elicit the perfect mood. Take note to the loneliness and isolation displayed in the shot of Tore knocking down the tree.
Like the other Bergman films I have seen, his personal debate about religion and God comes through in his poetic work. He contemplates the great sadnesses of life, but finds some hope in the end. Bergman saves until the close to explain what it all means, which creates an uneasiness throughout the rest of the film, because we are morbidly fascinated with where Bergman is taking us. In the end, he provokes our minds and makes us remember the film for more than its more disturbing moments.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
