Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Ulf Kjell Gür 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.

oOoBarracuda My third outing with Ingmar Bergman brought me to the beginning of his famed "religious trilogy". Through a Glass Darkly was released in 1961 and examines a woman's mental illness, a young man emotionally starved of his father's love, and the grief of losing someone you love and how helpless one feels in that situation. An emotional exploration of love and loss and a family left grasping at whatever pieces of their relationship are left. Visually gorgeous as it is stark, Through a Glass Darkly rakes the audience over the coals of its pensive intensity yet leave you safely in the warmth of its lyrical beauty.Returning home to his family island, self-absorbed writer David (Gunnar Björnstrand) is reunited with the son he often ignores, Minus (Lars Passgård), his daughter, Karin (Harriet Andersson) who has just been released from a mental institution, and her devoted yet frustrated husband Martin (Max von Sydow), David can't shake the feeling of regret that his children are such strangers to him. Minus will do anything to get his father's attention yet he never seems to be able to obtain it. Karin, conversely, only has her father's attention because of her mental instability and would much rather David ignore her as he does her brother. Warned by Martin of a possible relapse of Karin's mental condition, David attempts to be more of a father to his children as they spend time together on the island monitoring Karin. David didn't just retreat to get more writing done, however, in fact, he abandoned his children after the death of their mother, rendering their reunion awkward and emotionally cold. Martin, devoted as he is to Karin's well being, has also grown frustrated acting as the constant caregiver and little else due to Karin's diminished sexual yearnings. Their time together is filled with emotional distance and hostility culminating in Karin's discovery of a journal of her father's in which she discovers that her illness is degenerative and without cure triggering a breakdown that will test each person on the island. From the opening shot, Bergman creates an intensely atmospheric mood filled with grim overcast skies matching the feelings of the family members to one another. Another possible theme I'm beginning to notice during my fourth outing with Ingmar Bergman is the use of theatre and acting within his films. Judging by what is shared when his characters are on stage, it seems as though Bergman may have felt as though acting is when an individual is most honest with themselves and those around them. I am interested to see if this is a theme that persists as I travel through the rest of Bergman's filmography. Through a Glass Darkly is unique because it is a strong emotional film that is wrapped in such beauty it quells the notion that this is simply a "depressing Ingmar Bergman film". The technical aspect that stuck out to me most during this film was the precision with which each shot was framed. There is not a shot wasted or a position that is anything but calculated perfectly illustrating the deteriorating mental conditions unique to each family member on screen.

Andres Salama This "chamber film" by Ingmar Bergman (whose name is a quote in the Christian bible) has just four characters: a writer (Gunnar Bjornstrand), his schizophrenic daughter Karin (Harriet Andersson), Karin's husband, Martin (Max von Sydow) and Karin's teenage brother, Minus (Lars Passgard). With the exception of Passgard, all the other three are Bergman regulars, having appeared in many of his films.The movie happens in a single day period in an isolated island, and it's basically about how Karin goes from being relatively normal at the beginning to absolutely crazy 24 hours later, and the reaction of the three people around her. The Bjornstrand character, for instance, feels guilty about his daughter madness, though we now know that upbringing has little influence on mental illness. Also, her descent into madness is so rapid during the movie (though we are told that she has been in a mental institution before) that perhaps is not very believable. Also hard to accept are the solemn lines the characters spout about the "silence of God". Of course, many people have thoughts about existential issues like this, they just don't talk about them in such solemn manner. Of all the major directors Bergman was the one whose background in the theater was more obvious. In some of his movies, like this one, this stage background makes a little more of "noise".So this is a worthwhile film, but not in my opinion among Bergman's best: At about the same time he did with Bjornstrand Winter Light which is somewhat lesser known, perhaps, but far better.

gavin6942 While for me "Virgin Spring" or certain other films in his repertoire are better than this one, I would not say this was a bad film -- at all. I really enjoyed it, from its simple beginnings to a more dark and sinister ending. While much of it relies on madness and things that are not there, and a certain level of implication of some very improper acts, the film is simple but effective. I like it.I would normally comment on such topics as homosexuality when given the chance -- the son Minus is rumored to have been gay in some reviews -- but I just do not see it. Sexually repressed, maybe, but not gay. I would be open to arguments, though.