Cries
and Whispers
(1972/Criterion Blu-ray)/A
Spell To Wart Off The Darkness
(2013/KimStim DVD)
Picture:
B/C+ Sound: B-/C Extras: B/C- Films: B+/C+
Here
are two films that understand the link between silence, visuals and
pure cinema, one of which is a major classic...
Ingmar
Bergman's Cries
and Whispers
(1972) was a new direction for the legendary Swedish director to take
after he had a few films that had not had the critical and art
house-commercial success of some of his last few films. It had been
a few years since Persona
(1966) and Hour
Of The Wolf
(1968), but this brutally honest tale of a sister dying the the
family home of several sisters who are having more than a seriously
difficult time with death and the return of the repressed
was a great return to form and triumph for Bergman. Criterion has
issued the film in an incredible Blu-ray edition.
Agnes
(Harriett Andersson) is suffering from cancer and is not going to be
recovering from the illness, just getting slowly, graphically worse,
which her two sisters Maria (Liv Ullman) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin)
are there for her, though it starts affecting them, the rest of the
family and even their maid. We see love, anger, hate, snobbery,
arrogance, ignorance and inhumanity as the characters interact and
deal with all kinds of factors hey cannot control or even handle very
well, with some of the results being sad and some very ugly.
This
is a brutally honest film made by mature adults for mature adults
that remains a career high for all involved. It has actually become
better with age, ageless in some respects and makes for compelling
viewing from start to finish. Sadly, Bergman would only make a few
more feature films (despite doing all kinds of television in the same
period) and it remains something very special worth going out of your
way for, but expect the unexpected.
Extras
include a thick paper pullout on the film including informative text
and an essay by film scholar Emma Wilson, while the Blu-ray adds a
2001 introduction by Bergman, new interview with actor Harriet
Andersson, conducted by film scholar Peter Cowie, new video essay on
the film's visuals by filmmaker : : kogonada called On
Solace,
behind-the-scenes footage with commentary by Cowie, Ingmar
Bergman: Reflections on Life, Death, and Love with Erland Josephson
(2000, 52 minutes), an interview with Bergman and his longtime
collaborator and the Original Theatrical Trailer.
Needless
to day it is not easy to tell a story in images and especially now
more than ever, silence. This is also what Ben Rivers and Ben
Russell try in A
Spell To Wart Off The Darkness
(2013) with a lone, unidentified man traveling in the middle of
nowhere, finding nature, eventually people doing different things
(like a Heavy Metal group doing swordplay) and other abstract moments
make this at least ambitious in the fact it tries to get the viewer
to break with the rapid pace of an increasingly technologized world.
However, this becomes disjoined, has only limited points, sometimes
seemed unlikely and for being writerly, did not stay with me.
Still,
if you are curious about this kind of cinema, and it is cinema, then
you'll want to see it. Otherwise, you might not be so amused.
Extras
include a Director's Notes section inside the paper sleeve in the
cover and a short the duo made called Call No Man Happy Until
He Is Dead aka Vikings which is along the lines
of the feature here.
The
1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Cries
looks incredibly good, especially since Bergman uses red and that is
the toughest color in HD, but this 2K scan form the original 35mm
camera negative makes the film look as great as it ever has outside
of the best 35mm and 16mm film prints. This is some of Director of
Photography Sven Nykvist's greatest camerawork and the advanced use
of color is still amazing to this day. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Spell
is nicely shot for a new, naturalistic shoot, but is a little soft
throughout.
The
PCM 1.0 Mono on Cries
comes from its 17.5mm magnetic soundmaster sounding just fine
throughout for a quiet film that
has its share of music, talk and sound effects. I cannot imagine it
sounding any better. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Spell
is very
underused to the point that you might think the sound is missing like
a defect from the DVD, but it is there. Just don't expect much
activity and be careful of volume switching and high playback levels.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
