Tystnaden (1963)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Ingmar Bergman

Writer:

Ingmar Bergman (writer)

Release Date:

3 February 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

"The Silence" is about the emotional distance between two sisters. The younger one is still attractive enough to pick up a lover in a strange city...

Plot Keywords:

Sisters | Hotel | Hotel Room | Dwarf | Traveling

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Ingrid Thulin	...	Ester
Gunnel Lindblom	...	Anna
Birger Malmsten	...	The Bartender
Håkan Jahnberg	...	The Waiter
Jörgen Lindström	...	Johan

Also Known As:

The Silence (USA)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Sweden

Language:

Swedish | English | German | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (AGA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 (cut) (1965) | Finland:K-16 (cut) (1963) | Finland:K-16 (cut) (1964) | Finland:K-18 (uncut) (2004) | France:-12 | West Germany:16 (f) (re-rating) | West Germany:18 (f) (original rating) | Argentina:16 | Norway:16 (cut) | Norway:18 (1970) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | UK:X (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Svensk Filmindustri, Filmstaden, Råsunda, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company:

Svensk Filmindustri (SF)

Trivia:

The film was submitted to the rating bureau just weeks after the directions had been liberalized a bit: it went through without cuts, and made a real stir. It attracted huge audiences, was fiercely debated - and acquired a reputation for being the film that shot the first big hole in the "sex censorship wall" of Swedish moviemaking. Within five years, film censorship had become a formality.

Quotes:

Ester: No, I don't want to die like this. I don't want to suffocate. Oh, that was horrible. Now I'm frightened. That scared me. That mustn't happen again.
Ester: Where's the doctor? Must I die all alone?

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis (1966)

Soundtrack:

THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

Igmar at his most cinematic

This film marked a turn for Igmar Bergman's career. While always great, most of his films from the fifties are always plagued with an excess of theatricality and long parliaments. However this 1963 film he creates a strange world with very little dialogue and surreal imagery a la Bunuel (See the scene with the dwarfs)

For the time the film was also very shocking because of the sexually explicit scenes. The film starts with two sisters and a boy (the son of one of them), travelling by train into a strange country in the verge of war. They decide to stay in an almost empty hotel, where most of the film takes place.

The film involves themes like, incest, lesbians, alienation and the impossibility to communicate in general. Not to be missed.

10/10