Through a Glass Darkly

    Through a Glass Darkly
    1961

    Synopsis

    Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger brother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.

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    Cast

    • Harriet AnderssonKarin
    • Gunnar BjörnstrandDavid
    • Max von SydowMartin
    • Lars PassgårdMinus

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Chicago Sun-Times

      You can freeze almost any frame of this film and be looking at a striking still photograph. Nothing is done casually.
    • 100

      Time

      At every point, moreover, the actors are supported by Bergman's impressive cinematic skill. His script is a marvel of elision, speaking most eloquently in what it does not say. His photography is both poetic and worshipful. In every frame of the film the still light of subarctic summer silently instills an aspect of eternity, a sense of the presence of God.
    • 100

      Variety

      Not a pleasant film, it is a great one.
    • 80

      Chicago Reader

      Elaborately rhetorical at the end, this 1961 film nevertheless develops its theme lucidly and with some of Bergman’s most unforgettable sequences.
    • 80

      The New Republic

      For the eye and for the spirit, it is a study in varying shades of gray.
    • 80

      The New York Times

      The acting is finely modulated; Miss Andersson's flirtation with insanity is a ballet. And the austere beauty of Sven Nykvist's photography has an eloquence all its own.
    • 80

      The New York Times

      It has a simple, straight cinematic form, unifying a little tangle of experience within a modest frame. It may strike one as slight and disappointing alongside the intellectual magnitude of such as his film "The Seventh Seal." But it suggests a new mood of its author—introspective, troubled, cold.
    • 75

      TV Guide Magazine

      The usual fine performances from Bergman's regulars combined with a script that is not as ponderous as much of the director's other works earned THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1961 and an Oscar nomination in 1962 for Best Screenplay.

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