The Passion of Anna (En passion)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman
1969/Sweden
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
Andreas Winkelman: It’s terrible not being fortunate. Everybody thinks they have the right to decide over you. Their benevolent contempt. A momentary desire to trample something living.
Sorry Ingmar, existential dread is not a good match for lockdown, police brutality and riots.
Four lonely people live on an isolated island in the Swedish Archipelago. Divorcee Andreas Winkleman (Max von Sydow) lives as a recluse and bemoans his past humiliation. Anna Fromm (Liv Ullmann) is a crippled widow who drops by to use Andreas’s phone. Her deceased husband was also named Andreas adding to the confusion for this viewer. Andreas and Anna begin living together but never really connect.
Elis Vergurus (Erland Josephson) is a cynical architect whose current work is a cultural center he says will be a “mausoleum to meaninglessness”. His wife Eva (Bibi Andersson) suffers her own kind of emptiness. These four couple and de-couple while some kind of a maniac mutilates the animals on the island. Bergman breaks the fourth wall throughout with interviews of the actors about how they see their characters. Snippets from his film Shame (1968) are seen in dream sequences.
Bergman and Sven Nyquist cannot help making a beautiful looking movie and this ensemble cast can be no less than flawless. I could have done without the gimmicks. Many people love this movie but it is just too bleak and formless for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgqotljklM4
