Virgin Spring

Source: Wikimedia

It is rarely when a work like this surfaces in the world of cinema. Bergman's imagery is just amazing starred by the excellent performances especially the one by Ingari.

Most people I talked to about this movie, see it as one that inspired a similar hollywood movie. However, there is indeed much more to the story of Virgin Spring. Bergman's way of presenting existentialism, his depiction of conflicts between paganism and Christianity on which the movie is primarily based upon, is truly amazing.

The story of Virgin spring, is taken from an actual ballad about a spring that appeared on the spot where the virgin had died.

It only rarely that such dialectics of philosophy are expressed with so much clarity in cinema. That justice is ultimately His and that the mortals are bound to be sinful could not be explained in a better fashion.

Taking a note on cinematography, the cinema art seemed to have learned a lot from Kurosawa at the time this movie was made. In Rashomon, similar camera movements and characterization are used to exhibit the dilemmas and confusions of mankind. When human beings try to separate right from wrong and good from bad, it becomes hard to judge some everything. In both the movies, the classification of right and wrong doesn't seem to be always so sharply clear- Virgin Spring tells a very similar story only in a different culture, using different set of morals, ideas and values.

Bergman is one of those few directors who have mastered cinematography beyond what anyone can even dream of. In his own words, "cinematography is the only art that can present things as close to the ones in our dreams". This movie then, should be dreadful, yet a sublime and profound dream.

Since the very beginning of the movie, ingari worshiping a pagan god (Odin) is seen in pain - a very dark depiction of Ingari, indeed. Ingari seems to be possessed by the evil forces. A very significant part of the movie, thus, is about how intensely the evil takes her over. The end of the movie is when she seeks repentance.

Almost all of Bergman's movies are influenced by the Lutheran religion. Although he didn't practice religion as an adult, his childhood spent under stringent rules imposed by his parents (which he admits wasn't because of their malcontent or shortcomings as parents) ingrained religion in his way of thinking ; that in itself could be a very simple way to understand existentialism.