The Silence (1963)

Just perfect...

Good movie but grossly overrated

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Ingmar Bergman made a trilogy, according to critics, later Bergman himself, and still later the Criterion Collection. The Silence (1963) is supposedly the last chapter of this trilogy which also includes Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Winter Light (1963). They're all good films, but I question The Silence being linked with the others. It's possible to read The Silence as not having any particular relation to God, and there seems to be no direct reference to the Spider-God mentioned in the other two films and depicted on the Criterion DVD cover.Trilogy or no trilogy, The Silence is another solid film from Bergman. At first I found it kind of dull, as the two sisters Anna and Ester live with Anna's son Johan, with Ester being seriously ill. Not much seems to be happening to start with, there isn't much talking, and it seems a little strange when Johan goes into a room with several little people. At times it caught my attention with some open sexuality- the nudity (not quite as spectacular in black and white), the female masturbation, the sex in public. At any rate, the film eventually began to work for me, particularly with its conflict between the two sisters and the hints of lesbian incest. Anna is a sexual being, and her relationship with a strange man seems to be tearing Ester apart. With time, this film builds up undeniable atmosphere that ultimately wins me over. More people should see this film.

Two emotionally estranged sisters, Ester and Anna, travel by train through desolate countryside.Anna's son Johan travels with them.They stop at a hotel in some Central European country, where there is a war going on.The elder sister, literary translator Ester, is taken seriously ill.The boy wanders around the hallways of the hotel, where he meets a group of Spanish midgets.Anna ventures in the city, having a one-night-stand with a stranger.The Silence is an Ingmar Bergman film from 1963.It stars Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom as Ester and Anna, and they both are fantastic.Jörgen Lindström is terrific as Johan.Birger Malmsten as The Bartender is brilliant.Håkan Jahnberg is great as The Waiter.The movie belongs to Bergman's Trilogy of Faith , and it's the last one.There are many memorable scenes, like when Anna is in a theater and a couple starts making love.And it's pretty amazing to watch the interaction between the two siblings.Bergman was known of making these challenging films, that may not open up totally after first viewing, if ever.And this is a pretty challenging film, using more silence instead of actual words.

Ingmar Bergman started his career by making social films in 1950's. Even that the themes were big and universal, the films had a lot of personality. But in early 1960's Bergman moved to an even closer, more personal subject when he started to make his Faith Trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence). In these films Bergman researches the faith and disbelief in people. He grew up in a catholic family, but is an atheist or at least an agnostic himself. In the Faith Trilogy he studies, and shows us how religion, concept of God, the Bible - Christianity, have affected our own moral standards.As the title say the film is very silent, a very quiet film and this reinforces the intensity of it. The Silence is a story about two estranged sisters, staying the night in a strange town. People in the town speak a weird language, which reminds one of Estonian language. The mood in the city is dreamy, thrilling and perhaps threatening. The other sister has a young son, who spends his days wandering in the hotel corridors. The older sister drowns her loneliness in alcohol and the younger in sex.Ingmar Bergman's production is fascinating, mostly because he tried so many different things - but never letting his own unique style alone. The Silence is a very silent film, which narrative is based on gestures, facial expressions - cinematography. But his TV-series, which is also a film, Scenes From a Marriage is strongly about the dialog. It's full of long, slow-paced sequences filled with dialog and that's what makes it so great. Many see The Seventh Seal and Fanny and Alexander as his best films, but I myself prefer the Faith Trilogy, it's very artistic, dark, meaningful and challenging. I wouldn't like to put them in order, but I must say that The Silence is the most mature, intelligent and challenging of them. Even if one doesn't understand everything in it, something makes one come back to these film. The same is with all European masters who challenged their audiences, Federico Fellini, Jean Luc Godard and Krzysztof Kieslowski.The Silence felt like a very personal film, but its subject is universal. Just as with many films by Kieslowski in this the subject is hidden below the surface. One might wonder: "What does this have to do with God or religion?" But if you're used to artistic films or just pay attention you'll see it. One has to give oneself to the film. Cinematic art at its finest, a masterpiece.

The Seventh Seal was an absolute masterpiece. After seeing it I thought, "Wow! I've GOT to see more Bergman!" I thought this because The Seventh Seal addressed struggles that are common to all of us; hope, faith & death. Yet at the same time it managed to address these with compelling characters that provided a glimpse both of the beauty of life and of the deep hardship. Seeing Winter Light was then, different. It offered only bleakness, which being new to Bergman I should have been prepared for but I still found the story moving as it showed the extent of this priest's depression.I see The Silence and what do I get? ... Nothing. I really can't think of anything eventful at all that happens in this movie. Common arguments I hear in favour of this movie is that "you are not supposed to relate to the characters. You're supposed to be shattered by their loneliness and their inability to communicate". Which is fine, just as long as something actually happened. I really cannot think of anything that happens in the movie and severely frustrated I fast-forwarded through the movie reading the subtitles so I could get this over with and not watch another Bergman film again any time soon.I was initially drawn to Bergman as he was reputedly one of the great artists of cinema and I was fed up with the same commercial rubbish that was being produced year after year. This movie goes too far in the other direction. People may say there is great merit in this movie for the issues it addresses or its daringness to address them at its time of release, but none of that matters if the movie is not entertaining and this just genuinely wasn't.We go to movies to be entertained.That's it. That comes first.Bringing in philosophical themes & broken relationships is fine, great in fact, as long as the movie is still entertaining. That's what The Seventh Seal did. I really don't know why people LOVE this movie so much. I can't understand why I've only read one other review with this sentiment.However, one of Bergman's quotes was that he couldn't understand why critics loved Citizen Kane so much when he thought it was so "immensely boring". I guess it goes to show how subjective these opinions of movies really are.