The Promised Neverland (season 1)

Yakusoku no Nebarando; animated mystery / horror / psychological thriller series, Japan, 2019; D: Mamoru Kanbe, S: Sumire Morohoshi, Maaya Uchida, Mariya Ise, Yuko Kaida, Lynn, Shinei Ueki

In 2045, an orphanage hosts 37 children looked over by their ''mother'' Isabella. The children never left the estate, which is surrounded by a giant wall. One day, kids Emma (11) and Norman (11) go to the entrance of the wall, where their friend Conny was supposed to be adopted, but find out she was killed and sacrificed to a demon. Emma, Norman and Ray thus realize they are a food harvest for the demons, sent to be eaten when they turn 12. After Norman is being taken away when he reached the age of 12, Emma and Ray hatch up a plan to climb over the wall and slide on ropes over the canyon underneath, and thus escape with half of the children to the outside world.

The Epstein Files meet Shyamalan's ''The Village'' meet ''The Cabin in the Woods''—the 1st season of the anime ''The Promised Neverland'' is a remarkably sophisticated unraveling of a mystery about kids in an orphanage who discover their narrow world presented to them is not what it seems, and they become a symbol for dismantling and overcoming the propaganda bubble. The mood, the clever writing and the patient story build-up are the main virtues of this anime, yet it is all rewarded in the end. The often tactic of implying something supernatural, but keeping it hidden while the protagonists (and the viewers with them) slowly discover more about this world, is used here to an effect that reaches its optimum, since the story is intriguing, intelligent and swift at the same time. Except for a few neat camera drives (POV shot of someone walking upstairs towards a door; the tracking shot moving behind the corner as it tracks Ray walking in front of it), there are also some delicious details here: for instance, Emma shows a map of Isabella's room and explains to the other kids that she measured with her footsteps the distance between the walls outside and inside, and realized 10 footsteps are missing inside her room, meaning that there is a secret room behind the book shelf. In another tantalizing moment, the kids discover that books written by a certain William Minerva have a secret Morse Code imprinted on its seal, revealing clues like ''orphanage'' and ''monsters''. The final two episodes, 11 and 12, are the highlight, since a plan is devised and executed that is so genius that one simply cannot mention it without spoiling it, though the director uses masterful match cuts and flashbacks to say so much about the past of these characters and their relations. Several themes were deciphered from this story (vegetarianism and animal rights in a slaughterhouse; collaborationism in order to survive; freedom of information; the relation between passive obedience and active hope), but what is more relevant is that these themes were presented in a well set-up and executed storyline which engages until the end that hints at a second season.

Grade:+++

The Elementary School

Obecná škola; comedy / drama, Czech Republic, 1991; D: Jan Svěrák, S: Václav Jakoubek, Radoslav Budáč, Jan Tříska, Zdenek Svěrák, Libuše Šafránková, Rudolf Hrušínský, Petr Čepek, Irena Pavlásková

A village near Prague after the end of World War II. Eda (11) lives with his father, an electric engineer, and mother. Eda likes to play with his friend Tonda, but since their all-boys class lacks discipline, the school principal hires a former Nazi resistance member as the new teacher, Igor Hnizdo. Igor sometimes hits the hands of the boys with his stick, but the boys still adore him due to his stories about World War II, even though nobody can confirm at which unit he served. Igor has an affair with the wife of the tram driver, and even seems to be seducing Eda's mother. When news spread that Igor got two twin teenage girls pregnant, he is suspended from school, but reinstalled when it turns out to be rumor. For the anniversary of the liberation of the Allies, Igor stages a World War II school play with the boys as actors.

 ''The Elementary School'' is a typical example of 'Czech humor', consisting out of wacky situations and unusual characters without a tight plot, and is instead just a 'slice-of-life' collection, set here in nostalgic past times. Luckily, the director Jan Sverak and his dad, the screenwriter Zdenek Sverak, refuse to treat it as purely innocent nostalgia, instead defying and avoiding the cliches thanks to naughty humor (after all, the 11-year old boys are entering puberty) and concessions that there were bad things in the past, as well. The opening sequence is already amusing and clever: in the exteriors, a combat vehicle is seen driving across a meadow as gunshots are heard and explosions seen around it, while two little boys are seen inside, seemingly driving it—all until Eda's mother is heard calling them to get back home, as the two boys exit and it is revealed it was all just their fantasy, as they were just sitting in an abandoned old combat vehicle on some abandoned property. 

The first half of the movie consists mostly out of Eda and other boys doing either pranks or just plain silly things to amuse themselves in this boring, desolate village. In one scene, they ignite a mortar out of curiosity, but its missile just barely ejects and starts sliding on the ground through its exhaust pipe, passing under the legs of scared people who found themselves on the meadow. Eda has to take care of his sibling, so he simply attaches the baby on a cart to his bicycle—and naturally has to drive downhill of a rugged terrain, not caring that much what happens to the cart behind him. And there is the classic curiosity error when three boys lick a metal pole during winter and get stuck, so the principal orders an assistant to use a blow torch to melt the frost and release them, but part of their flesh from their tongues is left on the ice surface. Sverak crafts an episodic, messy structure, but loses his steam in the finale, since the abrupt ending feels incomplete and unfinished, whereas too much time is invested on the womanizer teacher Igor, when focusing more on Eda and his friends or family would have been more logical, instead. This is a very good movie, yet it seems something is still missing in the end.

Grade:+++

Drifting Clouds

Kauas pilvet karkaavat; tragicomedy, Finland, 1996; D: Aki Kaurismäki; S: Kati Outinen, Kari Väänänen, Sakari Kuosmanen, Elina Salo, Markku Peltola

Helsinki. Ilona loses her job as a head waitress in Dubrovnik restaurant at the same time that her husband Lauri loses his job as a tram driver. As now are both unemployed, they try to make ends meet. Lauri is offered a job as a bus driver, but fails the medical exam because he hears weaker on one ear. Ilona bribes an employment agent to get a new job immediately, but it is as a cook and waitress in a shabby bar that quickly gets shut down by the audit for not paying taxes. Ilona and Lauri invest all their money into a casino, but he loses it all in the bet. However, Ilona meets her former boss and she gives her money to open up a new restaurant, which attracts many customers.

Aki Kaurismaki's 12th feature length film is a gently ironic and uplifting depiction of unemployment, a depressive topic that he luckily refuses to treat too seriously. Similarly like most of his films, Kaurismaki directs the film in a minimalist, laconic style, incorporating bizarre-dry humor and de-dramatized acting reminiscent of Bresson's films, and the main actress Kati Outinen is charming as the heroine Ilona. The film is overstretched and with some empty walk, but the intermittent humor gives it a refreshing touch. In one of the most amusing scenes, Lauri goes to complain at the cashier after exiting the screening of a film at a cinema: ''I want my money back.'' - ''What for?'' - ''Unbearable rubbish. Get me my dough!'' - ''You didn't even pay.'' - ''So what! Cheating people. Goodbye!'', as he picks up his dog from the coatrack. The way Lauri loses his job as a tram driver is also amusing: the boss summons all the employees, and announces that he will fire four based on them picking a card from the deck of cards. In another funny situation, Ilona finds work in a shabby bar where she is the only employee—when one man orders something to eat, she goes to the kitchen door, pretends to pass the message to the cook, and then discretely goes inside the kitchen and prepares the meal quickly by herself. Kaurismaki paints an exaggerated and yet accurate depiction of Finnish mentality and small little quirks, filming everything in flat cinematography and medium-wide shots, creating a fine feeling of the people living there, despite the rather naive ending. Still, as the title implies, human existence is just a random drifting of chance, there are bad times and good times, but just like the clouds, it dissolves and re-assembles repeatedly.

Grade:++

Flickering Lights

Blinkende Lygter; crime black comedy, Denmark, 2000; D: Anders Thomas Jensen, S: Søren Pilmark, Mads Mikkelsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Sofie Gråbøl, Peter Andersson, Iben Hjejle

Copenhagen. Torkild is and his friends Peter, Arne and Stefan are friends and gangsters. Since Torkild owes money to a mafia boss, he is assigned to steal a briefcase from a safe, not look at what is inside, and bring it to the mafia boss. Naturally, Torkild looks into the briefcase, finds out it contains millions of Danish krone inside, so he and his friends flee with a car with it. The plan to flee to Barcelona, but since Peter was wounded in the shootout, they stop at a barn in the middle of a forest. Little by little, they start liking the place and the hunter and doctor in the nearby town, buy it, and decide to renovate it into a restaurant. Stefan's girlfriend Hanne arrives and informs him she is pregnant, but he eventually decides to stay at the restaurant. The mafia boss arrives to kill them, but the hunter shoots him and his henchmen with a machine-gun. The publicity of the event causes the number of guests of the restaurants to skyrocket.

Voted in one 2023 local national internet poll as the best Danish film up until that point, Anders Thomas Jensen's feature length debut film is one heck of a crazy, wild fun. A blend of ''Grosse Pointe Blank'' and ''In Bruges'', ''Flickering Lights'' has such insane and wacky jokes and gags, sometimes even so grotesque that it is on the verge of being too much, that the viewers at first cannot believe it, but as more and more of such jokes keep coming, this mood consolidates itself. But as mad as all this seems, everything has its why and because, so that the whole storyline has a purpose in the end, with every detail leading to a punchline later on. Most of this black comedy stems from interactions between these characters, who all have their own frequency of humor. In the opening scenes, the main character, gangster Torkild, has a dinner at a restaurant with his soon to be ex-girlfriend Therese, who gives him a book as a gift: ''I already gave it to you before, but you threw it away, so now I'm giving it to you once more.'' When Torkild returns to his apartment late at night, he notices the door is unlocked, so he pulls out his gun and shoots in the dark—as the lights turn on, it is revealed his friends were preparing a surprise birthday party for him, but his friend Peter now holds a smashed, shot wine bottle in his hand. 

The movie is full of such type of humor which just keeps its weird blend of laconic, cynical and sardonic humor throughout, and Jensen is able to get away with it, except for maybe three scenes which were misguided. Yet, everything else works. Jensen also gives four childhood flashbacks for each of his four gangster characters, explaining somewhat how they were either traumatized or damaged and became the way they are now. The childhood flashback revolving around Arne is the most painful: as a kid, he persuaded his two friends to go hunting in a forest with a rifle. One of his friends shoots at a pheasant, but then the scream of a boy in the forest is heard. Arne walks up to the wounded boy who was hit accidentally, but tells him it is alright since the rifle was only loaded with blanks, revealing the boy's leg is only scratched. The two boys hear another rifle shot, go back, and find the first boy who shot has committed suicide from guilt. Filled with creative ideas (the mafia boss plays billiard with a pool ball knocking down mini bowling pins), ''Flickering Lights'' is one of the most untypical crime comedy films, with the four gangsters abandoning the city, their previous gangster careers, a pregnant girlfriend and money, to just simply live in peace running a restaurant, with a neat ending that rounds up everything nicely. This is its very own film—you can like it or not, but you have to admit it is original in what it does.

Grade:+++

Quest for Fire

La Guerre du feu; adventure, Canada / France, 1981; D: Jean-Jacques Annaud, S: Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Nameer El-Kadi, Rae Dawn Chong

Earth, 80,000 years ago. A tribe of prehistoric humans lives inside a cave, supported by fire burning inside an improvised lamp, used to cook, keep the animals away and create spears. They are attacked by a tribe to ape-like homo erectus, who try to steal their fire. While escaping, the prehistoric human tribe flee through a lake, which extinguishes the fire. Three men are sent to find fire and bring it back. They save a girl from a cannibalenormous istic tribe that uses fire to cook humanoids. The girl joins the trio of prehistoric humans. The tribe of the girl capture one of them, but the other two help him escape. Another one is attacked and wounded by a bear in a cave, so the other one carries him. They bring back the fire back to their tribe, but it is extinguished in the lake. Luckily, the girl uses friction on two sticks to ignite fire.

The director Jean-Jacques Annaud seems to have been so fascinated with the opening segment depicting prehistoric humanoids in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' that he decided to make a whole movie dedicated to them, but a little more closer to modern times. Set 80,000 years ago, the film has no dialogue except for grunting, and depicts a raw, primordial and basic state of mind back in that times, and thus the movie uses raw, primordial and basic means to conjure up that feeling for the viewers. Watching it, the viewers immediately get two impressions—what enormous effort is accumulated in generations spaning tens of thousands of years in order for us to survive up until this day; and what a blessing technology and civilization are, which surpassed such a dreadful state. The opening is already gruesome in its details—three prehistoric women go to a creek for water, bend down, revealing their butts from underneath their leather clothing, so one prehistoric man sneaks up behind one to have sex. Their tribe is attacked by ape-like humanoids, probably homo erectus, and as the prehistoric humans want to exit their cave, the enemy throws rocks from above them. There is chaos, madness, primitvism and cruelty in this savage world, but also one wonderful moment of compassion which breaks it—after the hero caveman saves a girl, covered all in grey paint (excellent Rae Dawn Chong, whose face is very expressionistic thanks only to her two eyes visible behind this paint), she later walks up to him and shows gratitude by giving him improvised medicine for his wounds. Even elephants have make up, when they wear fur to appear as mammoths some halfway into the film. The relationship between the protagonist and the girl is underused, unfortunately, and some heavy handed moments bother, and thus ''Quest for Fire'' is only a rump forerunner to Annaud's excellent and similar minimalistic nature drama ''The Bear'', filmed 7 years later. 

Grade:++

The Garden

Záhrada; comedy, Slovakia / France, 1995, D: Martin Šulík, S: Roman Luknár, Marián Labuda, Zuzana Šulajová, Jana Švandová

Jacub, a teacher, has an affair with Tereza, a married woman. When his father catches them, he orders Jacub to move out of his apartment. Jacub travels from the city to an isolated house of his late grandfather with a garden, in the middle of the countryside. He initially wants to sell it to buy an apartment, but quickly becomes pleased with the garden, the nature and a nearby girl, Helena, who becomes his girlfriend. Tereza shows up and wants to continue the affair, but Jacub refuses. Since he did not show up at school, Jacub is fired from his job, but he does not mind. His father shows up at the garden, claiming he feels lonely in the apartment. Tereza starts levitating above while lying on a table.

This unusual and meandering comedy examines the issue of what is the better area to live—rural or urban—and that even this change of a location can cause a change of a peron's mentality. It doesn't have a clear narrative storyline, but is more a meditation on just letting go and enjoying the peaceful nature. However, some episodes work better, while others less so. The director Martin Sulik crafts some unusual and creative scenes, the best ones being those that are on the verge of a slapstick comedy: for instance, the first time the protagonist Jacub visits the garden, he encounters a whole array of visual jokes (he cannot find a door knob of a tall wooden fence, so he climbs atop of it, only to find out the door moves since it was not locked; he enters an empty greenhouse, and it collapses; he takes a step on a bridge, and it breaks as he falls into a creek). Another fascinating detail is when Jacub finds a diary written in reverse letters, so he uses a mirror to read its sentences. There is also a sudden, spicy erotic moment already 3 minutes into the film, when Jacub's affair, Tereza (Jana Svandova), takes her bra off, shows her breasts and then fondles with him—until they are interrupted by his father. A lot of scenes seem superfluous and unnecessary in the second half of the film, which wonders off into too many random, poorly thought out ideas (in one fantasy moment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau shows up fixing his car in the garden, while his wife is inside; and for some reason, Jacub and his father give each other haircuts halfway into the film, so that they are bald for the entire second half), leaving a feeling of underdeveloped ideas, but the moment of Jacub and Helena rolling wrapped up in a white blanket across the garden, embracing inside, is wonderful.

Grade:++

The Shop on Main Street

Obchod na korze; war drama, Slovakia, 1965; D: Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos, S: Jozef Kroner, Ida Kamińska, Hana Slivková, Martin Hollý, František Zvarík

A small town in Slovakia during the Nazi dictatorship and World War II. Carpenter Tono Brtko is annoyed by his wife Evelina who tries to persuade him to collaborate with the Nazis to help him get more jobs. One day, Tono's brother-in-law Markuš, a Nazi officer, gives him a document that allows Tono to take over a haberdasher shop from a Jewish old woman, Rosa Lautmann. He thus runs the shop jointly with her, while the local Jews pay him to keep it afloat and be kind towards Mrs. Lautmann. As an order is given to round up all the Jews who will be deported to an unknown destination, Mrs. Lautmann's name is missing from the list. A drunk Tono at one point order Mrs. Lautmann to pack her luggage and join the deported Jews, but then changes his mind and throws her inside the basement to hide her from the Nazi officers who pass by the shop. When Tono finds out he accidentally killed her when she fell, he hangs himself.

One of the most critically acclaimed films from Slovak cinema, this Holocaust drama shows a dark past in Europe during World War II presented through the Slovak perspective, though some clumsy omissions disrupt it from reaching its highest potentials. The opening act contemplates about what makes ordinary people agree to support a totalitarian dictatorship—when they think they can get some personal gain out of it. The protagonist Tono struggles to find jobs in the town, while his wife Evelina chastizes him: ''Would it hurt you to use the fascist greeting every once in a while, or what?'' - ''I am not a parrot.'' The directors Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos use a lot of details in said opening act to make it colorful and help it come to life: for instance, the point-of-view of a stork on the rooftop observing convicts walking around a prison and then people walking on the street next to it; or a conductor conducting a choir, while a little girl is waving her index finger behind his back, pretending she is also conducting the choir. Upon hearing he will be awarded the shop of a Jewish old lady, Rosa Lautmann, Tono is suddenly much more enthusiastic—he gets wealth and reward for supporting the dictatorship. 

This leads to the film's theme, namely how torn Slovaks were between collaborationism, which was encouraged, and their conscience, which was discouraged. Tono meets an acquaintance, Kuchar, who tells him about how Rosa became a widow in the last war while looking at the photo of her late husband: ''I could have been looking down from that picture and old Lautmann could have been standing here with you. I still remember that day in the trenches, bullets whistling past my head. One of us had to stick his head out. Lautmann did, and I am here.'' The cruel fact that a widow of a World War I veteran can just like that be discarded by its own country is not lost on the authors. As the Jewish barber Katz observes: ''When the laws go against innocent people, that's the end. The end of those who passed them.'' The finale where the local Nazi officers assemble all the Jews on the main square to be deported, while a nervous Tono looks through the shop window, is the most intense and best segment of the film, reaching dramatic intensity. However, his sudden, inexplicable drunk caprice where he randomly wants to force Rosa out of the store to join the other Jews on the square, but then changes his mind, is badly done, too heavy handed to work, and thus the planned cathartic ending is not earned. Another big error is the lack of Rosa's character development—she is terribly underused, too little joint scenes show her interact with Tono, and thus the viewers do not get an impression that the two of them bond, which inhibits the emotional dimension in the finale.

Grade:+++

Run Lola Run

Lola rennt; action crime, Germany, 1998; D: Tom Tykwer, S: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri, Joachim Król, Armin Rohde, Heino Ferch, Suzanne von Borsody, Sebastian Schipper

Berlin. Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni: after a deal, he was supposed to deliver 100,000 Deutsche Mark to his boss, but he lost the bag in the metro train. He has 20 minutes to find the money or his boss will kill him. Lola decides to run to her dad, a banker, and ask 100,000 DM from him, but he refuses. Manni decides to rob a shopping store, but the police show up and accidentally shoot Lola... 2nd option. Lola runs, takes a gun and her dad as hostage and robs the money from the bank. Manni runs towards Lola, but an ambulance van runs him over... 3rd option. Lola runs and invests all her money into a casino roulette. She screams and her sound causes her to win the jackpot. Manni finds the homeless man who stole his money and retrieves it, and is thus able to give it to his boss. Manni and Lola meet and now have a surplus of money. 

One of the most famous and best German movies from the 90s, ''Run Lola Run'' is built around the iconic cinematic character of a red-haired girl in a teal t-shirt running across the street, and even though it is just a stylistic exercise in a blend of action and experimental film, it works marvelously smooth until the end. The story is simplistic—the title heroine has 20 minutes to find 100,000 DM for her boyfriend—but it is the way the director Tom Tykwer directs all this that makes it inventive, creative and unusual. He uses various cinematic techniques to make the film tantalizing: animated segments; split screen; match cut; over the shoulder shots; slow motion or the fact that the story is told in three different alternatives all help this movie to look modern and hip. In the opening act, the narrator says: ''In the end, isn't it always the same question. And always the same answer?'' Then the main cast is introduced through some sort of gallery of mughshots. As Lola hears about the pinch her boyfriend found himself in, the camera rotates 360 degress around her as she thinks of all the people who could help her, until the camera stops and she consolidates the one person who could be the main candidate: dad. Cue to a short clip of her dad looking into the camera, but then shaking his head when he hears that. 

Even more peculiar, as Lola runs into some people on the street, a quick montage of stills shows what will happen to them in the future—in one such example, Lola runs by a cyclist, and the montage shows him being beaten up by thugs, then meeting a nurse in the hospital, and finally getting married to her. Tykwer creates a pace that is furious, but never aggressive—instead, it is optimistic, happy, funny and effervescent. Franka Potente is excellent as the leading heroine, proving that she can be not only agile, energetic and powerful, but also humane and emotional at times. For instance, she comes off as very fragile when her father admits she is his ''cuckoo's child'' or when she has a wonderful random flashback moment with her boyfriend Manni in bed: ''Because you are the best.'' - ''The best what?'' - ''The best woman.'' - ''Of all and all the women?'' ''Run Lola Run'' certainly is a patchwork with several excessive and superflous moments that were inserted just there for the random sake of it. And the resolution of the third story revolving around the casino is unconvincing and a bit too naive. However, it shows such a wonderful playfulness in including all those different, disparate elements that ultimately nothing else matters besides such a wonderful playfulness.

Grade:+++

Victoria

Victoria; crime drama, Germany, 2015; D: Sebastian Schipper, S: Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, Max Mauff, Burak Yiğit, André Hennicke

Berlin. Spanish girl Victoria is dancing in a night club, decides to go back home at 4:30 am, but bumps into four alcoholic guys lead by Sonne, and joins them on a walk in the streets. Victoria goes to a cafe to open it, and plays a piano for Sonne, before he departs. A few minutes later, Sonne returns with his friends and asks Victoria for a favor: she should just drive them in a car and back. At an underground parking garage, criminal Andi coerces Sonne and his friends to rob 50,000€ from a man who will enter a bank. They steal the money, Victoria drives them away in a car, but later the police tracks them down and a shootout ensues. Sonne is wounded, so Victoria takes a baby from an apartment and just walks past a police officer downstairs. The couple hide at a hotel, but Sonne dies from his wound, so Victoria walks away on the street.

"Victoria" is one of those movies that work only and exclusively thanks to one gimmick. The gimmick here is outstanding: this entire 120 minute film is filmed in only one take. This shows huge focus and craftmanship of the director Sebastian Schipper, but only on that one level. The camera follows the title heroine Victoria exiting from a night club, walking on the streets with four alcoholic guys, going to the rooftop of a residential building, then to her cafe, to an underground garage, driving a car in front of a bank for the guys to make a robbery, running away through the park from the police, hiding in an apartment and a hotel. Throughout this entire time and various locations, the camera is able to keep its focus and avoid any technical errors, which is a feat. However, the entire script was only 12 pages long, and it shows, since Schipper did not invest that much attention or care towards writing a concise storyline, leaving the film too banal or heavily overstretched and improvised by the actors, who seem to lead the story more than the director in this instance. Too many of these scenes and dialogue are routine, reducing the enjoyment value. Without this gimmick, this would have been a rather standard crime flick about people on the margins.

Grade:++

Cries and Whispers

Viskningar och rop; art-film / drama, Sweden, 1972; D: Ingmar Bergman, S: Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan

A rural house at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. Agnes is dying from a terminal stomach illness and is nurtured by maid Anna. Agnes' two sisters, Karin and Maria, are also there to keep he company. Agnes dies, causing Karin and Maria to reflect on their lives. Maria had an affair with the doctor, even though she is married to Joakim. Karin, on the other hand, is cold and distant. Anna is still devoutly religious despite the death of Agnes, and reads her diary.

Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, Ingmar Bergman's art-film is still mysterious, challenging and demanding psychological drama tackling some of the most taboo topics—the last days of a person dying on their deathbed; and the effect this leaves on the living who stay behind. Bergman is very elegant, smooth and minimalist in crafting this thin story—the opening act consists only out of aesthetic images of sunrays behind a tree; close-ups of clocks which signal that time is running out; and the terminally ill character of Agnes who wakes up in her bed and starts writing in her journal. By the time the first dialogue appears, already 9 minutes of the film have passed. There is no spectacle here, it is all very intimate and quiet. Agnes dies already halfway into the film, in a very painstaking and painful sequence, and the rest of the film revolves around her sisters Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (excellent Liv Ullmann), showing how each of them is an island for herself, how all of them are isolated and different despite being related. 

Karin is cold, distant and is afraid of human touch: in the most gruesome moment, she takes a piece of broken glass and slashes herself between her legs, under the dress, even placing blood on her lips, just to keep her husband away from herself. Maria, on the other hand, longs for warmth and human touch, and even has an affair with the doctor treating Agnes. Towards the end, when Agnes confronts Maria for touching her, almost incestously, they have this exchange: "You touched me. Dont you remember that?" - "I don't remember every stupid thing I've done, and I won't be made to account for them". Bergman has problems with articulating the content, since he is not quite sure what he wants to say (one unusual surreal sequence near the finale stands out stylistically from the rest of the story), but he crafts a very cozy mood thanks to huge close-ups of faces and Sven Nykvist's fine cinematography. As the movie contemplates, the theme is comfort in life, and the lack of it. When Maria and Karin reach their final days, who or what will comfort them? Agnes found comfort in religion and human compassion, even despite her pain and dying. Conversely, Maria and Karin are healthy, but have not found comfort neither in religion nor in human relationships. The ultimate point is that solace needs to be found even in small moments of happiness, as the final dialogue displays.  

Grade:+++