Comments on: SHAME d: Ingmar Bergman

By: solange SCHNALL

solange SCHNALL — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:51:10 +0000

I find it very difficult to see “a champion of survival” in Jan (Max von Sydow). A man who lags behind his wife, weeps in the staircase because of a private nightmare, incapable of repairing a radio, of repairing properly a car, incapable to kill a hen (what is he doing on a farm ?), able however to steal money from his wife, to walk and swim among corpses, with eyes indifferent to houses burnt down, inhabitant with them.
Doesn’t he shoot three times at the mayor-musician, a former friend who helped him avoid the concentration camp ? He offers altogether the image of a zombie and a coward.
Nothing of the sort qualifies Eva, a young woman full of life, love and energy, legitimately horrified at all the nightmarish war scenes, in a boat skipping among floating dead soldiers (Bergman had surely seen the film of the American landing in Normandy, with such a striking spectacle).
Whether the title means “shame” or “shameful”, it definitely applies to Jan. I wonder if it is really possible to feel empathy for the blind border line case he plays here.
This blindness and indifference to human life I, personally, associate with fascism.
The film is not anti-anything (neither war nor fascism).
“anti” would mean a call to arms. It is about an extremely infernal situation (alas, too commonplace) and the reaction of human actors confronted with it. And once again, here is broached a theme dear to Bergman : the disintegration of a couple. The dignity — and not the dementia — of Eva is in the horror mirrored in her eyes.
(I apologize for misspelling words. I am French).

By: Andre Soares

Andre Soares — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:59:02 +0000

Hello Henrik, Sorry I can't speak or write Swedish -- though I believe I did understand what you wrote. I checked the "Swedish translator" title of Bergman's film, and, true enough, it reads "Skam" not "Skammen." That's beyond our control at the Alternative Film Guide. We have the title in English ("Shame") in the heading. The auto translator mistranslated it... The automatic translator was added as a feature to help non-English speakers (or "readers") to read altfg articles. But translation mistakes are bound to happen as those auto-translators are far from perfect.

By: Henrik D. Ragnevi

Henrik D. Ragnevi — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:43:52 +0000

En bra recension med mycket bra reservationer, därför är det lite pinsamt att filmens titel anges vara Skam genom hela artikeln då den korrekta titeln är Skammen. Men det är inget att skämmas över…