"I could feel the presence of their bodies, the warmth of their hands. I wanted to hold the moment fast and thought, "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much. "
In "Cries & Whispers" director Ingmar Bergman and his team used 400 different shades of red. "I think of the inside of the human soul," Bergman writes in his screenplay, "as a membranous red." Each shade of the human psyche is amplified, from warm Amaranth to searing Scarlet. The one thing that every Red shares in the film is a sense of emotional claustrophobia. We get a few respites, mainly through brief idyllic shots of gardens and gorgeous greenery. Bergman stated that all of his films can be though of in Black & White, with the exception of "Cries & Whispers. It is easy to see why. The colors are resonant motifs of death, loneliness, love,blood,and finally,spirituality. If membraneous red is the color of the human soul, Bergman explores all its psychological perceptions in beautifully rendered chromatic celluloid.
Agnes, the main protagonist, seems to be the only person in the film who can escape this claustrophobia. She is dying of cancer in turn-of-the century Sweden, and when visited by her two sisters(Maria & Karin), long repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.Told through multiple flashbacks beginning and ending with complete frames of red. We observe Agnes' sisters cruelty, in both times past and present. Maria cheats on her husband,and offers no help when he stab himself after learning of her indiscretion. Karin cuts herself, and takes perverse pleasure in it. She not only relishes in cutting herself, but cutting others as well. In one scene, we see her viscerally describe to Maria her long standing hatred towards her.
The servant Anna, in many ways, can be seen as the only true companion to the suffering Agnes. She is, in essence, the only true "sister" in the spiritual sense of the word. Anna comforts her in her muffled,infantile state,and joins Agnes in her passivity as the other women progressively destroy themselves and one another. As Agnes slowly treads towards her inevitable death, we see a sense of calm instilled in her that her sisters do not possess. She may not be as active a agent as her sisters, but we get the sense that when the time of death comes to Maria & Agnes, they will be utterly lost. There is no light for them at the end of the tunnel, only the membraneous red pulsating in their veins. They are all whisper,and no cry. Bergman was a longtime skeptic of God,and this moral ambiguity in "Cries & Whispers" is perhaps his finest example of his renowned confessional art.
Agnes leaves a journal entry behind for Anna in the end, which I have quoted in the intro of this review. It tells of Agnes' pure happiness one afternoon when she & her sisters went for a walk in the gardens, and ran towards the swing set of their childhood, with no adult worries or vanity. They were, simply, living in the moment. If one is free of all complication, and faithful in their frailty, one can, for a incredibly brief moment, approach the pinnacle of mortal purity.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
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