Bergman 23: Shame (1968)

Serifs have appeared on the titles at the beginning of this one, which I feel is rather a pity, although they're still undeniably elegant. This film continues something of the technique I mentioned previously in relation to the trilogy, where a line of dialogue echoes something in a previous film, giving a sense of intersecting worlds. (Here, it is Eva's [Liv Ullmann] remark that she feels like she's living in someone else's dream, echoing the way that Hour of the Wolf's Alma [Ullmann again] shares her husband's visions.) But here we're dealing with a more concrete world than that of the previous film. Having said that, there's still a tendency towards allegory, notable in the refusal to give the two sides in the war names or any other specific details, and also in the final boat ride through a sea of corpses. But I think Shame is more interesting as a study of character, and that, in fact, that's where its real focus lies. It might seem early on, for example, that the film is more outraged that the symphony orchestra has been disbanded than that people are dying, but this is exactly what becomes at issue with the indulgences of the mayor (and later colonel) Jacobi (Gunnar Björnstrand) - a music fan - towards the two former violinists. It's a remarkable and detailed portrait of a relationship; a lesser screenwriter would have had them happier at the beginning, but Bergman is far too canny for that. And there are some remarkable and effective shifts of tone, including the - for me - laugh-out-loud moment when Jan (Max von Sydow) fails to shoot a chicken at point blank range. (Though this also sets up Jan's later incompetence at executing Jacobi.) It's really remarkable to see von Sydow and Ullmann portray such a completely different couple from the one they play in Hour of the Wolf, even though the two films were made in the same year. Of course, becoming different people is what actors do, but still, it's rare to see a pair of actors inhabit such different relationships so close to one another.