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.

Through a Glass Darkly is the first entry in Bergman's loose thematic 'Faith Trilogy', with each film acting as a different meditation on the notion of the silence of God.

In the film (which would earn Bergman his second Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1962), a young woman, Karin (Harriet Andersson), travels with her brother, father, and husband to a remote island for a short holiday after her release from a psychiatric institution. As the relationships between the group begin to fray, Karin slips further and further out of reality.
Bergman's spiritual concerns here are focused pointedly and imaginatively, as in Karin's visions of God as a prurient spider. Harriet Andersson gives another complex and formidable performance in the lead role, supported ably as always by Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand.

The title of the film refers to a Bible verse in 1 Corinthians, which states: "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" (1 Corinthians 13:12). In many ways, this verse acts as a throughline 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." Bergman, like no other director before or since, explored the pain it caused him – and consequently the characters he created – to only be able to see God "through a glass, darkly".

M | Moderate themes