To study the process - a case study. An uninhabited depth dimension. "As in a mirror" has offered the world of cinema massive inspiration. It is unique image structure, mental depiction and an enhanced dialect. You can not live in two worlds. It's so horrid when you see the confusion and understand it completely. Bergman pours himself out. Andrei Tarkovsky received. And others...So even if the words and interplay sometimes stumble a bit and becomes more entangled than Bergman expected, and the wallpaper is slightly overdue, this is memorable stuff. The moment when reality cracks open. Lars Passgård makes his screen debut. As IB's alter ego. And the editor Ulla Ryghe enters the film team. "Winter Light/The Communicants", "The Silence" and "Persona" rumble in the near future.

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY is a drama about a young woman, who suffers from mental illness, relationships, illusions and religion.The story takes place during a 24-hour period while four family members take their vacation on a remote island. A novelist, who has just returned from a long trip abroad, suffers from "writer's block". His daughter is released from an asylum where she has been treated for schizophrenia. His immature son feels deprived of his father's affection. A fourth family member is his patient and considerate son in law. A 24-hour of family drama, through games, lies, deception, passions, pain and faith...This is a realistic story about a mentally isolated people, who, in a kind of shock and tragedy seek for the necessary love. The protagonists wander aimlessly. They respond differently to a hopeless situation. This is evident during "mental wandering" of the main actress. Lonely souls try to feel the love through the knowledge of God. A disturbed mind has the illusion of encounter with God. That frightening contrast is a direct reflection of alienated minds. The sad and gloomy atmosphere in summer days on a remote island is another indication of that eclipse.The characterization is excellent.Harriet Andersson as Karin is aware of her agony and madness from which he can not escape. Her face is a reflection of the dark side of her soul and a puzzle with which she must live. Ms. Andersson has offered an unforgettable performance.Gunnar Björnstrand as David, her father, is a curious and sullen at the same time. He is a man who expresses his art while absorbs human souls. A strange feeling of guilt in a selfish being is very interesting. Max von Sydow as Martin, her husband, is a doctor who loves, understands, wants to make a change and feels helpless. Lars Passgård as Minus, her younger brother, is a hyperactive, sexually frustrated and confused child, who is not aware of the real problem.Consciousness seeks for knowledge through madness.

One unfortunate after-effect of the film is that an impressionable viewer who has a mentally ill relative might be misled into thinking that such friend or relative will inevitably deteriorate as rapidly and drastically as Karin did. However , even if "Karin" was a real person, there would be hope for her from the medical atandpoint, regardless of whether the other people in her life finally realized that they had given her the "wrong" kind of love (Through a glass darkly--thhe whole implication of that is "flawed love" and it is only at the end that the father and brother realize this). But remember the movie was made in 1961 and only a few years later there came the revolution in psychopharmacology, starting with Thorazine and then Lithium and then Klonopin and many many cases which would have "rotted away hallucinating or turned into zombie like catatonia have now recovered and are OUT of hospital with families and even jobs. Remember Karin referred to shock treatments. Today that only happens in very very extreme cases in hospitals (some wealthy patients have had it out-patient as a quick fix for depression rather than spend time in patient) but lobotomy and some of the "treatments" used in the 1950s have largely gone the way of the dodo. IAs to Karin, I believe that Martin was short-sighted in not going away with Karin after talking to the father on the boat and realizing the "coldness" of the father's detachment , even though it was an emotional defense. But that points up Martin's fallibility and the "flaw" in his own love---he couldn't do more than treat her as a sick pet to whom he was still attached in sympathy. Anyone who wants to write privately about "new hope" for mental illness is welcome to write me privately at [email protected] since this is moving beyond the scope of a movie plot

As usual with Ingmar Bergman's movies, the power of imagery, its meticulous attention on shadows and lightning have such an effect on eyes, a second viewing becomes an absolute necessity for the distracted mind, and the second effect is so mind-blowing, any use of words becomes pointless.Words and images, light and darkness, harmony lies in pair in Bergman's films and "Through a Glass Darkly" is no exception. The pairing pattern works for faces as the film rarely shows one person in the screen, always two. Four major protagonists are always interacting in pairs. We draw our personal circle, says David (Gunnar Björnstrand) to his young daughter Karyn (Harriett Anderson) in order to protect ourselves from the others' secret games, and when life breaks the circle, as a defensive mechanism, we build another one. Life is made of round-trips between illusion and reality.In an earlier scene, David is confronted to Martin, Karen's husband, played by Max Von Sydow. He told him that Karyn checked into his diary and found out his secret thoughts about her disease. Although never revealed, it's clearly implied that she suffers from schizophrenia, and they're all resting in Faro Island after she spent some time in a mental hospital. Karyn is normal on the surface, but her child-like behavior while she teases her younger brother Minus (Lars Passgård) arises our suspicions. She then explains that her hearing got more accurate, she's awaken up by noises of birds and animal, and is even capable to hear some voices speaking to her from a wallpaper and announcing the arrival of God. Karyn's life, so far, feels like a one-way ticket to a world of illusions.And according to Martin, Karyn's disease is 'relatively incurable'. What is 'relatively'? Is it a light of hope, a euphemism or God having pity of one of HIS firmest believers? Anyway, David only reacts as a writer; he sees an opportunity to fill his mental block, which Martin explicitly condemns. David can barely hide is guilt and his reactions sound like admittance. It's simply amazing how a simple conversation put answers to all the interrogation left in the set-up. Why is David so estranged to his family? Why, after a long trip to Switzerland, he plans another world-traveling period? It might be part of his situation as a successful author, but it doesn't fool anyone, these travels are his escape from reality. According to his personal vision, David drew his personal circle from his reluctance to face the reality of his daughter's sickness, of his boy's unease with the adult world. On the other hand, Martin, is the most compassionate and disinterested protagonist, although Karyn can't bring him sex and happiness, he loves her, and tries desperately to reach her, while witnessing the disintegration of her mental state. David, however, asks him whether he can control his inner feelings, to which Martin retorts that he's too simple and human for that. Is he? Wouldn't he secretly wish for her wife to die in peace, and put an end to a pointless anguish, and wish what would be more of an act of mercy from God?Bergman's started his 'chamber' trilogy with a film whose themes echo his eternal torments, not existential on a personal but on a binary level, how can two people understand each other's condition, how can one break the other's circle? But this is not a philosophizing film, for the simple reason that it is a film and film is an art of imagery and emotions. Bergman, a natural-born playwright, uses a family island, some rooms and an attic as the setting of people's torments. Examine some crucial scenes, two faces are on the screen, looking in different directions, both lit by lights from different sources, as if the source of one's truth was a secret impossible to reach.This device, from the cinematographer and genius Sven Nykvist would culminate with the iconic shots of Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullman half-faces forming one in "Persona". But if "Persona" showed that the line between two souls could be opened, it's this impenetrability that shows in "Through a Glass Darkly". And the narrative is mostly pessimistic on Karyn's case, she's not trapped in a circle, but has a foot in reality, and one in the 'other' one, from which some voices whisper and announce her the imminent intervention of God. This is perhaps one of the greatest enigmas that tormented Bergman, the filmmaker, the existence of God, and the alienating effect of the intellectual and emotional efforts to reach him. Maybe the secret is to find God within the world you exist in, rather than the outside world. Again, as painful and troubling as life is, it's still life. The movie ends with a heart-to-heart discussion between David and his son, both trying to find out the roots of salvation, how to get accommodated with reality. Maybe the essence of life is love, and this is where God must be found out. Love in the broadest meanings, from a brother, a father, a lover or a husband …it's all about approaching our vision of love. There are many interrogations left, notably a controversial moment between Karyn and Minus with many incestuous undertones. Maybe this was another misguided attempt to find love, in the most awkward way, something so unexplainable that even the Master explored it carefully, leaving up to us to see "through the glass", the magic class of his camera.One night, my wife wanted to play to a game of impossible choices. She asked me: what if I had the choice between fulfilling all my dreams, becoming an acclaimed and distinguished filmmaker but losing her love. Like in a Bergman film, my silence said so many words that no answer mattered anymore. I knew how David during that crucial boat ride… and this is how genuinely expert on human's deepest complexities, Ingmar Bergman is, on a universal level.