Waste of time

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Ingmar Bergman's Cries & Whispers is a story of death, real death and the walking dead, as epitomized by three sisters: Agnes (Harriet Andersson), Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin). At the turn of the century in Sweden, Maria and Karin come to visit their dying sister Agnes, who is in terrible pain from what is probably cancer. Agnes has perhaps a fantasy idea of her sisters, as the last scene tells us. In truth, Agnes is the only one capable of feeling pain; her sisters really don't want to be part of her dying process and are there out of obligation. Only the maid Anna is there to hold Agnes, to touch her, and to love her.Maria's affair hurt her marriage to the sensitive Joakim, and when he stabbed himself and begged for help, she just stood and looked at him. (Evidently he lives, though.) Karin hates her cold husband and what she does to keep him away from her is one of the most shocking scenes in the history of film.We're not told what childhood trauma, what "tissue of lies" of which Karin speaks that has driven these women to lack compassion or empathy; we know only that Maria was her mother's favorite. We don't know anything about the father. There is a homoerotic undertone to Karin's relationship with Maria, which Karin seems to both want and reject.The cinematography in Cries & Whispers in glorious, from the vivid red that is used to punctuate scenes, to the women's surrounds. In one startling scene that resembles a painting, the women sit in different parts of the room -- Maria in white, staring out the window which is framed by red drapes; Karin in gray at the piano, and on a sofa in the back, a dejected Anna. Each is lost in thought; they are miles apart.Later, as Anna reads Agnes' diary, Agnes recalls a walk the three sisters took along with Anna when they first arrived, the three sisters in crisp white with white umbrellas, Anna by their side. Stunning.The overall coldness of the family is downright icy as they talk about Anna at the end. Maria and Karin are unlikeable characters, and one has no sympathy for them. The only sympathy engendered is for Anna's ability to love and accept love in return and for Agnes' horrible suffering. Her suffering, however, ends. Her sisters' suffering will be infinite.A true masterpiece.

This film was a very creepy, dark film that was an amazing show for people who like that kind of movie. This movie has a great use of camera work and it truly speaks to me. The use of red throughout the movie added a very dark mood and also a recurring theme: blood. I believe that Bergman was aiming to get this into the audience's minds, and he for sure succeeded. This movie effected me in many ways, especially emotionally. One of the main characters, Agnes, who is suffering from a death causing illness, is stuck at home trying to cope with that illness. Unfortunately, neither of her sisters, Karin and Maria, could help her or really seemed to care to help her. The only person who stepped up to the plate was their maid, Anna. This really effected me because I was surprised that they really weren't trying to help her even though she was their sister. When I watched this film, I was fascinated at the whole storyline and how everything played out. The only thing that I didn't like very much was the ending, but I can't think of any other way of ending it without making the story less powerful.

To me this movie could have been about or was partly about exploring family relationships and how an anticipated death can make people act. I didn't really get much more out of it than that. I definitely had trouble understanding the overall message it was trying to relay to its audience. Regardless, I can definitely applaud Bergman for provoking extremely heavy emotion. I didn't even fully understand what this movie was about, but left it with the most unsettling and intense feeling. From the music, to the moments of deep silence, to the close up shots, and to the extremely blunt and graphic scenes, Bergman stirs many dense emotions. It created such a heavy and unsettling feeling within me to the point where I felt anxiety during and after the movie. I definitely need to watch it again to try to find more meaning within it, but it's worth watching just for the emotional experience of it. It's amazing how (and proves how) movies can completely consume your emotions.

Cries and whispers showed us siblings that don't get along are brought together by the death of their sister Agnes. Bergman used the color red brilliantly throughout the film. I believe that the color red not only symbolizes inferiority of the human soul but also the pain each individual character carried. This film also in a way related to the passion of Christ by Agnes' death leading to redemption to her sisters, and by her maid Anna sort of representing May the mother of Christ. Maria (Agnes' most beautiful sister)wanted more attention from her husband but since she received a little bit of attention she searched for it through the doctor. her other sister wanted to receive less sexual attention from her husband so she made herself bleed to see if he would still want to touch her still.