THE VIRGIN SPRING is a drama, which questions moral and religious themes through events of rape and revenge.In medieval Sweden a rich grandees sends his daughter to take candles to the church. She is accompanied by her pregnant servant, who secretly worships a Norse deity. They travel through the forest on horseback. The servant is scared and begins to lag behind. She encounters a one-eyed man at an old mill. The one-eyed man tried to harass her. During that time, three herders lurk a beautiful daughter...Mr. Bergman has tried, in an explicit, rude and brutal way to equalize a criminal and a vigilante. Moral games have reflected through human power in certain moments, which is in contrast with the fear of God. Rape is very realistic and brutal in this film. This could cause the opposite effect on the audience. This, regardless of the "Bergman's artistic magic", was unexpected. An innocent teenage story turns into a nightmare. However, the religious motive is constant. Symbols of innocence were killed in a primal passion and an unbearable pain.A medieval scenery contributes to a visual impression. Expressions on the faces says a lot more than words. All characters are faced with some form of a guilt.Max von Sydow as Töre is a stubborn husband, caring father and fanatical avenger. Birgitta Valberg as Märeta is the mother, who is full of understanding and superstition at the same time. Birgitta Pettersson is a naive and innocent beauty. Gunnel Lindblom as Ingeri is a cursed maid. I will mention Ove Porath (Boy), who is perhaps a stronger symbol of innocence as opposed to beauty.All living protagonists have experienced a "strange" purification at the end of the film.

Being an atheist, I have always found it challenging to review a religious movie, because I worry that my criticism will be more about religion than about the movie. This difficulty is compounded if it is not clear what the attitude of those who produced the movie is toward that religion, whether they intended the movie to be a criticism of religion or a defense of it. In other words, it is not clear to me whether "The Virgin Spring" looks upon the simple faith of some fourteenth century peasants in the same way that parents will smile at their child's belief in Santa Claus, or whether the movie actually shares that faith in God and encourages us to do likewise.Anyway, as I said, there is this fourteenth century family of Swedish peasants headed by Töre. His daughter is Karin, who is a blonde virgin. Well, her body may be pure, but her soul is not. She is lazy, vain, and spoiled, smug in the fact that she is so cute and adorable that she can do as she pleases. She has a foster sister, Ingeri, who is a brunette, a bastard soon to give birth to a bastard of her own. The two of them set out for church to do something or other, and on the way it turns out that the other night Karin was flirting with the man that got Ingeri pregnant. Though there is no hope that he will marry Ingeri, yet Karin's dalliance with him infuriates Ingeri. Just to rub it in, Karin taunts Ingeri for no longer being a virgin, while gloating over the way she will someday be married in all her virginal purity. She really made my flesh crawl.They get separated, and soon after Karin comes upon three goat herders that rape and murder her. They strip her body of her beautiful clothes. Later, they ask for lodging at Töre's house, not realizing he is Karin's father. That night, they present Karin's clothing to her mother as a gift, saying it belonged to their sister. She tells Töre about it. He asks Ingeri what she knows, and she admits that she witnessed the rape and murder and feels guilty because she wanted Karin to get her comeuppance. Töre then murders the three goat herders, one of whom was just a boy, who had nothing to do with what happened to Karin. Then Töre feels guilty for having committed murder. The whole family goes out to where Karin's body lies dead. When they find her, Töre raises the ancient problem of evil, asking why God let this happen and then let him commit murder, while at the same time saying that he begs God's forgiveness.Now, this is what I was talking about. Are we supposed to approve of Töre's attitude or should we be disgusted? I mean, I'm disgusted. In fact, it is even a little disgusting that he had to wait until his daughter was raped and murdered before questioning how an all-powerful, loving God could let this happen. After all, God has been standing by and letting girls get raped and murdered for centuries, and it is only now, when his daughter is a victim, that he takes exception to God's indifference. So, am I being disgusted with the movie or with the religion that this movie is premised upon?It gets worse. Töre promises to build a church on the spot where Karin died, in hopes of being worthy of God's forgiveness. Then, when they lift up her body, water begins to gush from the ground where she lay, becoming a spring. The family treats the water as if it is a miracle, a replenishing gift from God. That's right. Karin's rape and murder have been worth it, because now we are going to get a church with a little spring nearby. Perhaps I should point out that there is no shortage of water in that area, the family having crossed a large stream on their way to get to Karin, so it is not as though the spring will bring needed water to a parched region. It's just more water.Here we go again. I don't know whether we are supposed to regard that spring as a real miracle or not. If it is a miracle, then we have to wonder: as long as God was willing to perform a miracle, why didn't he miraculously save Karin instead? If it is not a miracle, are we supposed to despise or admire the family for thinking it is one?I give up. I'll have to let someone who actually believes in God tell me what I am supposed to make of this movie.

I saw the 'remake' 'Last house on the left' by Wes Craven before this one, and in spite of that one having some odd comedic scenes in it, I still think it has more punch than 'Jungfrukallän'. One problem is that this film feels a bit like a play and lacks a certain rawness that 'Last house...' does have, although this does not apply when finally Töre (the father) exacts his revenge. Another problem is the ending: the choice of divine intervention (the miraculous spring that appears when the body is moved) is just not a believable one, it seems Bergman was mistaking the directing chair for the pulpit. One other thing that doesn't sit right, is that the thugs choose to knowingly offer Karin's robe to her family... such is just beyond ány reason.On the positive side, Max von Sydow and Birgitta Pettersson present us with some fairly iconic characters, and Bergman's attention to detail (for the most part) is a joy to watch.With a heavy heart, I can't go higher than 5 out of 10.

I watched 'The Virgin Spring' (1960) on TCM today. It's a Swedish film with English subtitles directed by Ingmar Bergman. If the definition of a horror film is one that scares you by what you see and hear in even just a few of the scenes, then this is a horror movie IMO. For instance there is one scene where the sweet and innocent victim realizes what is about to happen to her. That scene for me was spine chilling. Chilling because these horrors really happen, unlike monsters from space or whatever. It was mesmerizing to watch beginning to end, subtitles and all. I was never a big Bergman fan in years past, probably because I didn't devote the time to his films. I'm only now starting to appreciate his vast talent for story telling and imagery. This is one of those times I wish I was a decent writer so I could put into words what I want to express about this story. I''ll put it simply in my words. The story is about a well to do very religious small family in what I took to be the middle ages. The two parents have farmhands, servants and one young, maybe 17 year old, daughter who is their pride and joy. They send their daughter on a short sort of pilgrimage to bring candles to their church. She is expected back that same day. During the course of her short journey she meets with disaster because she is naive about strangers. Later by a strange turn of events, the parents get their revenge for what happens to her. And do that get even ! I don't want to say much more about the plot. I will say it's obvious that the 1972 horror film 'The Last House on the Left' was roughly based on this much superior story. 'TVS' can be taken as a straight plot of loss and revenge or it can be analyzed much deeper. With this story Mr. Bergman makes us think hard about the nature of God, jealousy, vanity, revenge, regret and even forgiveness. It's the kind of film that will stay with you long after it ends. I do my best to keep these comments short, this is getting long, so I'll end by saying 'The Virgin Spring' was an amazing example of film making at its best.