Bergman is an eternal skeptic, and faith is one of his eternal creative motifs. This complex work has a lot of room for in-depth interpretation. It is impractical for me to fully interpret the director's will. I only provide one of the perspectives of understanding! The story of the movie takes place on a small island isolated from the world. This fits the four protagonists at the core of the movie. They are closed in their hearts and isolated from the world. The island is small compared to the world and reflects the smallness of their respective spiritual worlds! The movie takes place in such a small world (the spiritual world of Kojima and the four protagonists). First, let’s briefly talk about the story of the movie. Four characters: father, daughter, son-in-law, son. Four inner worlds: Father: writer, addicted to creation, wife who has been evading mentally ill daughter after the death of mental illness, resulting in the lack of paternal love between children and daughters. Character analysis: In this character, I see more selfishness and indifference to family affection. He evades his father's responsibilities and is obsessed with his own creative world, which is one of the sources of intensified psychological problems for his children. At the same time, the time and background of the movie, this father is in a period of creative exhaustion. He even uses his daughter’s illness discovery as his inspiration for his creation. This indifference is chilling, not to mention that his daughter is driven by a certain psychological prediction. The discovery of this behavior paved the way for the final collapse of her daughter. Son-in-law: Doctor, I have an illusion of recovery for my wife. But the responsibility of being a husband is only a kind of care not to be disturbed, and he has never really accompanied his wife. Character analysis: As a husband, his cognition of responsibility is far greater than his care for his wife. He is indifferent to his desire for his wife's companionship! Being indifferent to the husband is another major reason for his wife's mental breakdown. Daughter: A mentally ill patient, I have no way of judging the more specific components of this disease. I can only see from the movie that she has obvious symptoms of bipolar disorder (anxiety, hallucinations, delusions) and schizophrenia! In addition to schizophrenia, it is also accompanied by a strong depression...Under the double escape and lack of paternal love and husband love, she finally has a mental breakdown. Character analysis: Psychosis was inherited from her mother, but it was intensified by her cruel father and selfish husband. In a sense, the escape and lack of care of these two closest relatives was the indirect mental cruelty that she fell into the abyss step by step! The lies of her husband and father made her despair and truly succumbed to disease! In the end, after she fell into a desperate situation for her father and husband, the temptation to her younger brother was to some extent an indirect substitute for the inner needs of attention and love. Her mental breakdown revealed in a sense the hypocrisy and indifference of the world, even her close relatives were so selfish, and how much she still had the will to survive in life, which prompted her final breakdown and also gave up on the world. , Abandoning herself, even though she had a brief struggle... Son: The adolescent son longs for the attention of his father, has youthful fantasies about women, and has an ambiguous and obscure affection for his sister! Character analysis: Adolescent boys, the need for father’s love and the budding of male desires, have realized replacement and compensation from the love of siblings and brothers. This is an age that cannot withstand temptation, is mentally unsound, and lacks the ability to discern emotional desires. Youth in need of guidance. The four roles are all very complicated. From the relationship between the four, we can extract several major contents of the movie: 1. Love: father's love (for sister and brother), love (for wife), youth love (for son) , But these loves are all missing. 2. The selfishness, hypocrisy and lies of people, the indifference and ruthlessness of the world: the father's indifference and evasion (responsible for the father), the perfunctory emotional care and companionship of the husband (responsible for the husband), the two main males are more transparent Through the appearance of hypocrisy, to hide the true escape and indifference to his daughter and wife in his heart. This kind of selfishness began to realize the serious consequences when the daughter or wife was in desperate situation, but Bogman was even more ironic, let these two characters understand that they were escaping from the beginning, and even the true selfishness in their hearts wanted their daughter. Or the wife ends their burden with death. Bogman's hypocrisy and selfishness towards people are so sharp and indifferent! And the love of the closest relatives satirizes the indifference and hypocrisy of the whole world, so that the daughter's self completely disgusts the whole world. (Additional one: Psychiatric patients can usually see a more real and essential aspect of the world. In my opinion, their foresight, hypothesis, etc. are full of the mystery of the spiritual world, and this can also be seen in movies. It is reflected, from which we can see the depth of Bogman’s creation) 3. God and the Devil: Daughters often fall into the illusion world. Between the normal world and the illusion world, the alternation of two kinds of identities and personalities is giving birth to greater pain, and Below this leads to another eternal motif of Bergman: Does God exist? Bergman’s suspicion of faith has never ceased. In this work, the identity of the daughter lies in the (fantasy) conversion to God’s madness and the discovery that God does not exist but a spider (I think it refers to the devil, but I’m not sure about Bo What Geman refers to, let’s understand it this way) trying to swallow her, in a sense, this is a projection of her heart, God is her heart, the devil is her heart, and Bogeman’s inner projection: we believe God, but fear attracts the devil (in our hearts), and it is we who distort our beliefs. Questions are also raised: Does God exist in our hearts? Is it perceptible? Can it help people get rid of the fear of the soul and the pain of the spirit? Does God love me? The ending of the movie is obviously that God cannot see the world or he does not exist at all. Bergman did not deny it with certainty. He just, as always, doubts, doubts whether God exists? From this, we can also see an existential thinking and questioning common to all Western cultural sources (whether philosophy, literature, film... or other art) about God? Bogman is one of the skeptics, and Taji, Bresson and others are undoubtedly God’s fanatics. Even Pasolini is not necessarily an absolute atheist? And in this kind of continuous artistic exploration, what we see is the narrow world of faith facing the entire human race. Faith is often alienated and distorted by itself, and our hearts never stop asking and imagining God! From the artistic analysis of this movie, the human heart is faith. The human heart determines the composition of beliefs and determines what God we see! From a deeper analysis, how small is our human heart compared to the vast God? We are just mortals who are lost in the world and bound in our hearts. Our closest distance to God is our most real pain and the most impoverished imagination! Does God exist in our hearts? Is it perceptible? Can it help people get rid of the fear of the soul and the pain of the spirit? Does God love me? The ending of the movie is obviously that God cannot see the world or he does not exist at all. Bergman did not deny it with certainty. He just, as always, doubts, doubts whether God exists? From this, we can also see an existential thinking and questioning common to all Western cultural sources (whether philosophy, literature, film... or other art) about God? Bogman is one of the skeptics, and Taji, Bresson and others are undoubtedly God’s fanatics. Even Pasolini is not necessarily an absolute atheist? And in this kind of continuous artistic exploration, what we see is the narrow world of faith facing the entire human race. Faith is often alienated and distorted by itself, and our hearts never stop asking and imagining God! From the artistic analysis of this movie, the human heart is faith. The human heart determines the composition of beliefs and determines what God we see! From a deeper analysis, how small is our human heart compared to the vast God? We are just mortals who are lost in the world and bound in our hearts. Our closest distance to God is our most real pain and the most impoverished imagination! Does God exist in our hearts? Is it perceptible? Can it help people get rid of the fear of the soul and the pain of the spirit? Does God love me? The ending of the movie is obviously that God cannot see the world or he does not exist at all. Bergman did not deny it with certainty. He just, as always, doubts, doubts whether God exists? From this, we can also see an existential thinking and questioning common to all Western cultural sources (whether philosophy, literature, film... or other art) about God? Bogman is one of the skeptics, and Taji, Bresson and others are undoubtedly God’s fanatics. Even Pasolini is not necessarily an absolute atheist? And in this kind of continuous artistic exploration, what we see is the narrow world of faith facing the entire human race. Faith is often alienated and distorted by itself, and our hearts never stop asking and imagining God! From the artistic analysis of this movie, the human heart is faith. The human heart determines the composition of beliefs and determines what God we see! From a deeper analysis, how small is our human heart compared to the vast God? We are just mortals who are lost in the world and bound in our hearts. Our closest distance to God is our most real pain and the most impoverished imagination!
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