Sven Nykvist's luminous black-and-white photography conspiring with the austerity of Bergman's imagery to create an extraordinary metaphysical charge.

| Jan 26, 2006

Represents the primary nexus between Bergman's austere but accessibly recherché works of the 1950s and his downright ascetic 1960s cinema.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 23, 2006

It is far from an easy picture to watch or entirely commend. For Mr. Bergman has stocked it with scenes of brutality that, for sheer unrestrained realism, may leave one sickened and stunned.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | May 9, 2005

The period details are magnificently worked into the narrative, and the pace and economy of the tortured Swede's storytelling make his metaphysics infinitely easier to take.

| Jan 1, 2000