About

'Through a Glass Darkly' was a desperate attempt to present a simple philosophy: God is love and love is God. A person surrounded by Love is also surrounded by God. … The terrible thing about the film is that it offers a horrendously revealing portrait of the creator and the condition he was in at the start of the film, both as a man and as an artist. - Ingmar Bergman

The film that earned Bergman his second Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Through a Glass Darkly follows the young Karin (Harriet Andersson) as she travels with her brother, father, and husband to a remote island for a holiday after her release from a psychiatric hospital. As the relationships between the group begin to fray, Karin slips further and further out of reality.

Bergman's spiritual concerns here are rendered imaginatively, including Karin's visions of God as a prurient spider. Harriet Andersson gives a characteristically complex performance in the lead role, supported ably by Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand.

The title of the film refers to 1 Corinthians 13:12, which reads: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known". In many ways, this verse acts as a through line for Bergman's religious dramas. His characters are so often unable to see the God they seek clearly and truly – instead their understanding is obfuscated by silence or doubt. Figures like the knight in The Seventh Seal 1957 and the priest in Winter Light 1963 long for a moment of clarity; they long for the opportunity to finally see God "face to face."

M | Moderate themes