Skammen (Shame) (1968)
IMDb meta-date is runtime of 1 hour and 43 minutes, rated 8.0 by 14,001 cinematizens.
Genre: Drama.
Verdict: Bleak.
A bickering couple on a remote island become pawns in a civil war.
For reasons unknown these two concert violinists have retired from the world to grown lingonberries, not to be confused with cloud berries. They live in a dilapidated farm house with an unreliable car and erratic telephone service. Their only contact with the world beyond the island is a radio that has been accidentally knocked to the floor so often that it seldom works. When they go to market with the berries, others speak of tensions and conflicts, but this couple lives in a world apart as they pick at the scabs of past infidelities, real or imagined; disappointments, large and small; and petty irritations, chronic and occasional. No voices are raised but the low level abrasion is continuous.
The world comes to them when the war intrudes. Once famous concert musicians, they make good headlines as each side by turns coerces them into propaganda statements. They have no knowledge or interest in the conflict except to survive so they can continue their mutually assured abrasion.
These political details are irrelevant to that Ingmar Bergman fixation with human relationships. Can their relationship survive this trauma? Should it? How will it change? Why? It has his tropes: long silences, inability to communicate, suppressed emotions, angst, and pitiless close-ups. These themes dominate most of his films, though not all (sidelong glance at The Seventh Seal), and here they are examined against backdrop of this violent, incomprehensible conflict which must surely have been an echo of the Vietnam War.
While not the main focus there are nonetheless some penetrating anti-war elements, e.g., the soldiers from the two sides are indistinguishable, and neither side ever declares a purpose or a cause except victory, and the one scene no viewer ever forgets on the boat. [Say no more.]
‘Bleak’ as most of his films are, as bleak as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. I came across it again on You Tube and watched it in episodes while eating lunch. Grim fare with my fare over a few days. The cinematography is superb; the direction brisk; the players are credible. It all adds up to bleak. None of the reviews I read explained the title.