Watching it with mom??
Bergman (how does he understand women so well??) shows the hidden and even dark side of the mother-daughter relationship without hesitation:
"What a terrifying combination of emotion, confusion, and destruction. Everything is possible, and everything is under the guise of love and care. Mothers' hurts are passed on to their daughters, mothers' failures are compensated by daughters, mothers' troubles It's the daughter's troubles, like the umbilical cord was never cut."
The daughter is a special other to the mother: she is also a projection of the mother herself. Whether intentional or not, the mother finds comfort in letting her daughter bear the pain for her mother. But mothers go far beyond sharing pain with their daughters, mothers often give her love. But in the movie, love is minimal, the mother needs love but can't give it, she's selfish and doesn't love herself (and she can't be sure of her own existence). A daughter's love cannot be reciprocated in a mother, just as Eva's husband cannot receive Eva's love. But in the end, she chose to give in. In the endless loneliness and pain, she wrote a letter to the mother who had already played down her daughter's turbulent emotions and happily stepped into the performance journey on the train, asking her for forgiveness.
She never got rid of the uncut umbilical cord.
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