Ingmar Bergman's Stunning Shame - Page 2

As wars will, this one suddenly upsets their plans, as a surprise attack on the island sends them diving for cover. Jan discovers a dead paratrooper hanging from a tree, and quickly finds himself accused by the rebel army of killing him. After both claim no involvement with politics at all, the rebels start filming them, and try to browbeat them into saying they support the rebels; no sooner is that episode over than the Rosenbergs find themselves at the mercy of a somewhat Kafkaesque government, who use the film against them to say they are traitors. One of their produce buyers, Jacobi (Gunnar Bjornstrand), is a government official who gets them off the hook. There proves to be a price; he wants to sleep with Eva. Eva does what she has to to survive, and so, ultimately, does Jan — but in his case, sexual humiliation (such a horrific part of Bergman's nightmares — think of the clown in Sawdust and Tinsel) leads to vengeance and worse: the mild-mannered concert violinist becomes a moral monster.

This, then, is the shame of the title — Jan and Eva, harmless and helpless citizens, have been reduced and cheapened by a war they had nothing do with; a war that makes even the peaceful as bad as its worst offenders. They and a few surviving others wind up adrift on a sea of corpses, which keep getting in the way of the boat — the living dead fighting for passage against the actual dead, and the difference between the two is slight.

I've waited for years to see this film, and I couldn't be more stunned by the results. It will probably burn a hole through just about everything you've seen recently; one of those movies that leave you thinking "This is cinema. Everything else is just shit."

Article Author: Rodney Welch

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