The Silence

The Silence (1963) begins with two sisters and one of their young sons travelling by train through a country whose language they do not speak. When one falls ill they stop at a hotel in a strange city. The city is preparing for war, tanks pass in the street, and nobody can talk to them. The title works two ways: the absence of a shared language, and the inability of the sisters to speak to each other. Ester is a translator, so language is her profession, and she cannot reach her sister. Anna speaks through the body and takes up with a man at the hotel. It is the last film of Bergman's trilogy of faith, after Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light. By this final part God is no longer even a question; what is left is silence. Its release caused a serious censorship argument in Sweden and abroad. The sexual scenes were explicit for the time and were cut or banned in many countries, and the controversy increased its box office. Sven Nykvist shot it. The hotel corridors and empty halls function as the film's real character. It runs 95 minutes. Good for: Bergman, minimal narrative, and films built on atmosphere. Less good for: there is almost no plot and the film explains nothing. The sexual scenes are staged coldly and uncomfortably, deliberately so. Apart from the passages seen through the boy, there are few emotional ways in.