There's so much to unpack in Bergman's The Passion of Anna, that I don't know if I can do it. This existential drama is, at least in one respect, about identity. Max von Sydow's character has voided his, and more or less becomes what others make of him, to the point where he becomes Anna's lover, one suspects, only because he has the same name as her dead husband. Another character collects photographs of people and files them away in a massive library; even he admits there's no insight to be gained from looking at a person's portrait. Anna's own desire for truth is tangled up in the fantasy world she's created for herself. She's not who she thinks she is. And perhaps this is what justifies the film cutting to the actors discussing their characters, a conceit that neither helps nor hinders the film, but that perhaps resonates thematically in that way. And then there's the disturbing plot point about a crazed sadist killing animals throughout the countryside (I don't know what to know how those scenes were achieved), which creates a world both cruel and pointless, not at all in contrast with what's happening in the human drama. Bergman's usual discussions about God's existence (or rather, non-existence) add to the existential despondency of the piece. As bleak as the landscape it's shot in.
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Siskoid
There's so much to unpack in Bergman's The Passion of Anna, that I don't know if I can do it. This existential drama is, at least in one respect, about identity. Max von Sydow's character has voided his, and more or less becomes what others make of him, to the point where he becomes Anna's lover, one suspects, only because he has the same name as her dead husband. Another character collects photographs of people and files them away in a massive library; even he admits there's no insight to be gained from looking at a person's portrait. Anna's own desire for truth is tangled up in the fantasy world she's created for herself. She's not who she thinks she is. And perhaps this is what justifies the film cutting to the actors discussing their characters, a conceit that neither helps nor hinders the film, but that perhaps resonates thematically in that way. And then there's the disturbing plot point about a crazed sadist killing animals throughout the countryside (I don't know what to know how those scenes were achieved), which creates a world both cruel and pointless, not at all in contrast with what's happening in the human drama. Bergman's usual discussions about God's existence (or rather, non-existence) add to the existential despondency of the piece. As bleak as the landscape it's shot in.