Silence

Bergman passed away this week. I wouldn’t call myself as big a devotee of his work as innumerable others but that’s probably because I didn’t or couldn’t appreciate them. In spite of that, my fervor for cinema has been greatly enhanced by some oh this great directors’ works like Smiles on a summer night, Silence, etc.

I was particularly moved by Smiles….., by the positive and exuberant tenor of the film, which, I thought, was otherwise lacking in his other movies like Through a Glass Darkly, Shame etc.

Through a glass…., which is often critically acclaimed as his finest work, is marked by a melancholy, in fact, an air of anxiety that underneath the tranquil exterior, a bizarre tragedy is waiting to happen. True, that’s what the director intends to portray, and in that context, it is brilliant, but, this rendered the whole movie too ‘sad’ for my liking.

Again, in most of his movies, I could never connect to the characters, be it the doctor and writer in Through a Glass, the philandering woman in silence, or the hermetic couple in Shame. They never appeared to be ordinary people leading ordinary lives; instead, they would always be a part of the directors’ own world than the viewers’ milieu which, along with Kieslowski, was a regular feature of Bergmann movies.

Of course, these opinions might sound juvenile and rubbish to some who swear by Bergmann and I’m sure there would be millions out there. Also, I don’t have any unalterable beliefs as I have barely seen six or seven of his movies. Maybe after watching some more of the prolific director’s movies, I might end up refuting my own views.

Living to the ninth decade of his life, he must have been pleased and content, conscious that his work will continue to be revered by multitudes for many decades, and maybe even centuries.