So for all of you people who have been waiting for this since I posted the list of movies that I was going to talk about, posting five of these over five days talking about some of the most dark, depraved and disturbing films the Criterion Collection has to offer, I'm sorry for the wait but I'm sure you could understand why I might not have been looking that forward to this. I have seen two of the movies beforehand, those being Salo and House, and I really am looking forward to seeing The Virgin Spring, the movie I'll be talking about today since it is my introduction to the works of Ingmar Bergman, I can kind of imagine this being a little hard to do starting off with what can be described as the arthouse version of The Last House on the Left even though this one came first but with that description, this one sounds like it would be a lot of fun to watch. To get introductions out of the way, this 1960 Academy Award winning film (for Best Foreign Language Film) has it's roots in a 13th century medieval Swedish ballad Tore's daughters in Vange where three highwaymen kill three women of a couple whom they meet and try to sell the clothes they stole from the bodies which gives away the deeds they committed and the father kills two of them, leaving the third alive to ask about why they would do such a thing. The movie does borrow the names of the parents of the daughters, Tore and Karin although only the father in the film takes their name from the ballad while the daughter here is named Karin.
Let's get things going here and say that I really thought this movie was really.... I don't want to say good in the traditional sense. Maybe the better word would be effective in how it does a rather good job of making someone uncomfortable, mainly in the scene where the herdsmen rape and murder Karin. There is something about the swift nature of it that makes the whole thing all the more disturbing, like as if the herdsmen only saw her as an object that should be defiled and destroyed, the way they do it lasting only about a minute or so although the buildup does take a while which does add more to the unsettling nature of it. I could compare this to The Last House on the Left and its scene where the two teenage girls are raped and murdered because in that it is more dragged out, allowing it to show more of the brutality of the actions that the criminals are committing and for that movie, it does work (aside from the out of place comedic moments which makes the movie tone deaf in places) and kind of shows off the harsh nihilistic nature of the criminals but to get back to The Virgin Spring, I do find the swift action a lot more brutal and nihilistic since it makes the criminals really seem as if they do this sort of thing because they can or maybe for no real reason at all. Although one of them does feel guilt about the action, the young child of the group who becomes sick at the table of Karin's parents who have taken them in for the night, and might actually have been the only one of them who figured out whose farm they were at before they all are killed.
The movie also does have a lot of religious subtext in it (I could be using that word wrong) in how Karin's family is all Christian aside from Ingeri, who is apparently her step sister who worships the Norse god Odin (which is the opening of the film of her calling to him). This could be showing the changing times that were occurring with the beliefs at the time, switching from paganism to Christianity. Ingeri's beliefs also play into her guilt later in the film as she blames herself for what happened to Karin since she called to Odin out of hatred towards her, jealous of how Karin is still a virtuous virgin while Ingeri is pregnant and while it isn't given whether or not she knows who the father is, she seems to be left alone as a pariah of the family. There is also Karin's parents, Tore played by Max von Sydow, a Bergman regular who is as fantastic and intense as usual and Mareta is played by another Bergman regular Birgitta Valberg, who they themselves do occupy different types of believers. Mareta is more of a devout Christian who takes it very seriously while Tore is more lax about his beliefs. They do love Karin with all of their heart though, even when Tore wishes Mareta would be more stern with her, kind of going into the opposite of their religious beliefs compared to how they parent their daughter. There is also the ending when they discover Karin's body, occurring after Tore kills the herdsmen, and he becomes wrought with despair and guilt over how God could allow his daughter to die in such a manner and how he was able to enact his vengeance upon her killers, leaving him unable to understand yet he still asks for forgiveness and promises to build a church on the spot for payment of his sins. And then there is the titular virgin spring which pops out right when the parents take hold of the body and a stream of water comes from the dirt, which they use to wipe off the dirt from her face.
The scene where Tore kills the herdsmen is rather brutal as well even though he does kill them off rather quickly too. The first one is killed with a butchers knife and that is done quickly, yet the second murder is really quite intimate as he uses his bare hands while having the guy lie on top of a fire. The youngest one is killed off quickly as well, after which Tore really snaps out of his rage and comes to terms with what he had just done, staring at his bloodied hands with disgust and wondering whether or not what he had done was justified even under the circumstances. To get off topic, the first half hour does a lot to introduce the family and Karin, showing how she is a nice yet naive girl along with being really pretty and having her parent's affection. I really enjoyed the part where Tore comes to check on Karin before she leaves and they have a somewhat playful conversation where it can be seen how much he does care for her and maybe that if the situation that occurs later that he might actually convince himself to enact acts of vengeance. The actress who played Karin, Birgitta Pettersson, I looked up and I'm surprised she didn't act in more films, having only done another Bergman film, The Magician, beforehand and I think only one other movie after and I wonder why since there is that quality that she has that I can't explain, yet she was able to sell her character well.
Here is the end of the first post of this Nightmare Fuel week and for the most part, it started off rather easily even though The Virgin Spring is not an easy film to watch yet I am looking forward to watch more Ingmar Bergman films. Tomorrow's post though..... is fucking Salo...... thanks, my only follower "thumbs up"
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