The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: The Virgin Spring (1960), directed by Ingmar Bergman

     

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Sweet Revenge", by John Prine

     So far we’ve had some pretty iconic directors sprinkled around the list this year. Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, John Milius, etc. Which is great, but with the exception of Hitchcock, we haven’t really broken out of the United States yet. Which is bad, because there are scores of great films and great directors outside of America and Britain that are worth experiencing. Like Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman for example, one of the most famous auteur directors of all time, and whose name sounds like something you’d call your pet alien. Bergman’s films are notoriously bleak and somber affairs, frequently dealing with such lovely themes as death and insanity, and used so many long bouts of silence that it makes Stanley Kubrick seem inadequate by comparison. Which sounds like just the right kind of mood to be in on Halloween, so I decided to pick a Bergman film more or less at random and see how it went. What I ended up with was The Virgin Spring.

      In a scenic part of the featureless Swedish countryside, there once lived a Swedish family, who lived their lives as was appropriate for Swedes to do at the time. The pride and joy of the family was the daughter, Karen, a beautiful young girl with golden hair and a willful personality, One day, Karen and her kind-of-insane relative Ingeri take a trip to the local church, to deliver the candles for Mass. Tragically, while on the way to the aforementioned church, Karen is accosted by three goatherds. Karen is raped and murdered, her possessions looted and her body covered in dirt and mud. The family is understandably upset when Karen is missing for so long, and when three mysterious travelers come by to stay the night, carrying a familiar looking shift to trade, it sets the stage for some good old-fashioned revenge.

     I have to admit that The Virgin Spring was a bit tough for to get into at the beginning, those long bouts of silence and vague dialogue are all too real, but once I got into the meat of the story it started getting really interesting. That bleak atmosphere Bergman is so famous for is totally appropriate in a movie about the futility of vengeance and the silence of God. While not really a horror movie (unless you count the destruction of innocence), it’s a good film to put under your belt if you’re looking to become a more advanced movie fan, or if you want to clear the room after a particularly raucous party this Halloween. And if you’re Swedish, well, you know what to do.