At the end of the film, when Karin walks to the maid Anna to say goodbye to her, she lowers the veil that was lifted, and Maria does the same when walking to Karin. The actions of the two sisters seem unintentional, but in fact they use a veil to build a barrier between themselves and others, which also reflects a conflict in their hearts, a estrangement between the lonely and the world.
The lifting and lowering of the veil is just a small detail. The whole film is full of estrangement, some are about life and death, some are about the closeness of the body and the alienation of the mind, but they are all related to human nature and loneliness.
The film is filled with inescapable red, large busts against red curtains, and rooms and activities against red backgrounds. It seems that red should mean vitality and vitality, but in this film, red brings only a sense of claustrophobia and a heavy sense of isolation. There are basically no outdoor shots in the whole film. Everyone's shouts and whispers take place in closed rooms. The shots don't even reflect the movement of space, but just use a red curtain to switch the scene. When the narrow space meets the rich and pure red, the only thing it brings to the viewers is a sense of oppression, as if unable to escape this closed space, unable to go out from their own small world and embrace others.
It seems that only in this independent and secluded environment, can the audience and the characters examine their hearts together and examine the estrangement of human nature in the face of life and death, emotion, and status.
Bergman puts human nature in an extreme environment to test, and puts it between life and death to test how hard the barrier is.
The dead Agnes still yearns for the love of her sisters. She still wants to touch and crave warmth, but Karin said, "No one will do what you say. I'm still alive, and I don't want to touch the dead you." The words "alive" and "dead" are antonyms and constitute a barrier between people. No one can revive her soul, but Agnes can, because she longs for love, but this layer of estrangement cruelly exposes the sisters' previous hypocrisy. No one wants to touch her, because without love, there is no courage to cross the barrier of life and death. Maria screamed and ran away from the dead Agnes' room, completely isolating Agnes from the world and leaving her alone before and after her death.
On the way from the loneliness of the world to the pinnacle of loneliness of nothingness, Agnes's soul is not reconciled. She returns to find her sisters, but what she gets is not their sincere embrace, but uncontrollable fear and disgust. In the face of death, we see the truth of their hearts and the nature of loneliness that people can't get rid of.
The whole film is full of physical touch, but the people who touch each other cannot be intimate, which is another hopeless human estrangement.
Agnes was not welcomed by her mother when she was a child. She seemed to never fit into the family on the lawn and in front of the piano, but she had close contact with her mother who was sitting alone in the red room. Her mother pulled her to her, and she stroked her mother's cheek. But they didn't communicate spiritually, no sadness or joy could be read from Agnes' large, empty eyes, but from one loner to two loners.
On the hospital bed, the doctor and Agnes were very close. Agnes pulled the doctor's hand, which was stroking her body, to her chest, but such a close contact was indeed silent, not even breathing. Desires and feelings are neither heard nor seen, only two empty souls are pulled apart by nature. When the doctor left, he met his lover, Maria. The same is touching, there are the movements of the hands that can't help but also the kisses and breaths that can't be restrained. But such a seemingly loving touch is also abstinence. When the two seemed to have reached a state of confusion and love, the doctor turned around and left, leaving Maria still with her lips slightly open. Feeling overwhelmed in place, he finally disappeared into the red curtain. They are not like a pair of lovers, but just like a tool to vent each other's desires. The estrangement between the two that cannot be eliminated stems from the secular and taboo, morality and norms.
Karin couldn't stand being touched by others. After Agnes died, she had a meal with her sister Maria, during which she knocked over the glass, and Maria at the other end of the table suddenly withdrew her hand from the table. This seems to imply that Karin rejects others thousands of miles from body to soul. The trembling of her hand overturned the wine glass and exposed her nature, and Maria noticed it and she longed to be close to her sister's heart. Back to his chest again. After that, the two had intimate contact. They touched each other in front of the red curtain, hugged each other while crying, and chatted eagerly, but in the end, the two still denied each other's friendship through the veil and separated. Every verbal or physical contact between the two sisters confirms and deepens the estrangement between them step by step. Their loneliness cannot be shared with each other, and they can only choose to continue to protect themselves with the diaphragm, which makes the soul even more lonely. The loneliness is in essence exclusive, and it is a vicious cycle. Broken loneliness.
There are many physical contacts in the film, but from the mutual touch, it seems that only the empty soul of the protagonist can be seen, except for Anna's caress to Agnes.
The maid Anna would always take off half of her blouse and hold the seriously ill Agnes in her arms, caressing and kissing. Even when the sisters had abandoned Agnes, who was still alive, Anna came in again, and let Agnes lean against her warm chest, soothing the unrelenting soul of the dead. That hugging gesture, that Anna with a soft light, that Agnes whose soul gradually dispersed quietly, constitutes a sculpture, "The Pieta." But in this seemingly peaceful and holy picture, I still see estrangement. It is the gulf between mortal mortals and immortal gods, or saints.
Throughout the film, Anna has gradually gained the halo of a saint since she lost her daughter. She doesn't need words or status, she is the most sacred character in this red world. But she is lonely and alone. She gave the aura and warmth of the Virgin to mortals, but she could not get real respect in the world. In the end, neither of the sisters' families wanted to leave an inheritance for her, and she was still a servant with no social status. When Anna touched Agnes intimately, the estrangement also stemmed from this difference in identity, but the identity here was the exact opposite of the status in the world. Anna is the Virgin Mary, and Agnes is a mortal who is mortal. Anna can give mortals warmth and hope, but cannot communicate with their souls. Anna's love and concern for Agnes is no longer the kind of earthly love and concern, but a kind of redemption for all beings by the saint standing on a high place. Anna is doomed to be alone, because she has the spirit of the Virgin who will not die.
The living and the dead, saints and mortals, these two extreme estrangements are magnified and shown to the world by the film. At the same time, the touch between mortals also reflects the estrangement in their hearts, and the interaction between estrangement and loneliness brings more despairing loneliness. In this film, no one is not desperate, and no one can communicate well with the world, everyone is alone. No matter how close the body is, those who don't love you will never love you, and this "Cry and Whisper" just magnifies "not love" and puts it into an extreme environment to cruelly verify it.
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