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Enveloped by an almost oppressive silence, with faint whispering punctuated by screams of agony, and washed in deep shades of red, Ingmar Bergman's 1972 masterpiece Cries and Whispers finds the Swedish writer-director at his provocative best. Two wealthy women (Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann) keep a vigil over their dying sister (Harriet Andersson), attended by their family's loyal maid (Kari Sylwan). What emerges from this crucible of suffering is an intense character study that explores the sisters' cold, repressed lives of privilege through icy conversations, dreams, and flashbacks. Cries and Whispers approaches perfection on every level: Bergman's dialogue is surgically precise yet savagely intimate, the music of Bach and Chopin is used sparingly but to overwhelming effect, and the cinematography by Bergman's longtime collaborator Sven Nykvist is a spectacularly vivid yet subtle manipulation of color and light that won Nykvist an Academy Award. The color of blood plays a crucial role here: Indeed, there are no fades to black in Cries and Whispers, only fades to red. As is typical of Bergman's best work, the film mines the depths of physical and emotional pain, and it can be disturbing to watch. And yet somehow -- despite the fact that there's not a moment of levity in Cries and Whispers, Bergman manages to wrest a strange sense of redemption from this dark material. The Criterion DVD includes both Swedish and English soundtrack options and rare interviews with Bergman and his friend the famed Swedish actor Erland Josephson. Gregory Baird

All Movie Guide

Cries and Whispers stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Thulin as the sisters of dying cancer patient Harriet Andersson. Both sisters have already had brushes with death: Ullman has had an affair which prompted her husband's suicide, while Thulin has long wanted to do away with herself, at one point mutilating her own vagina out of self-hatred. As for Andersson, she has been in pain so long that she feels as though she's in the midst of death-in-life. With her two sisters wrapped up in their own problems, Harriet turns to her housekeeper Kari Sylwan for comfort; Sylwan has herself suffered the death of a child, and has developed a philosophical attitude towards impending doom. One of the most influential moments of the film -- when two of the sisters share the innermost thoughts that they'd kept from one another for so many years -- is filmed without benefit of dialogue, with the music of Chopin (enhanced by cinematographer Sven Nykvist's carefully selected camera angles) "speaking" for the ladies. While Cries and Whispers only won the Oscar for cinematography, the film did very well for itself in international awards contests. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 037429156322
• Source: CRITERION
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Vistavision (1.66:1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital, monaural
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 1:31:00
• Sales Rank: 5,814

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