Sven Nykvist Memorial - Part 4: The Virgin Spring

The Virgin Spring is just such a rich film. There's so much going on there to focus on. Technically, you've got Nykvist doing his thing (see below), Bergman's always-sublime direction, great acting all around (Sydow, of course, Birgitta Pettersson, Gunnel Lindblom, the herdsmen, not to mention the boy, who turns in one of the best, most nuanced child performances ever), the sparse but evocative music by Bergman regular Erik Nordgren. Then, you realize that, not only does the film tell a great story, full of details and well-developed characters, but it just gives you so much to think about. Bergman presents a complete world, encapsulated in 89 scant minutes, a world that seems to be in contention with itself; Christianity and paganism, purity and filth, pleasure and horror, guilt and redemption, good and evil, Heaven and Hell.

This was Nykvist's first collaboration with Bergman, aside from some minor work on Sawdust and Tinsel, but you wouldn't know it. From the start, the two men moved with such conviction and boldness that it seemed like they were brought together by destiny. He captures Bergman's world in conflict so elegantly that it's impossible to imagine the scenes being shot any other way. His lighting reflects the conflict in the film; there are many contrasts between light and dark, the natural and the baroque, the beautiful and the ugly. Just look at the expressions on the characters' faces here, all stripped bare, right down to their very soul. Yes, Nykvist as the master.

"...we are both utterly captivated by the problems of light, the gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, living, dead, clear, misty, hot, violent, bare, sudden, dark, springlike, falling, straight, slanting, sensual, subdued, limited, poisonous, calming, pale light. Light." - Ingmar Bergman on Sven Nykvist