The Passion of Anna (1969)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Film Review

The Passion of Anna completes a loose trilogy of films in which director Ingmar Bergman examines how external factors can influence a person's psychology and result in the break-up of a close male-female relationship.  It follows the expressionistic Hour of the Wolf (1968) and the wartime drama Shame (1968), with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann playing the lead characters in all three films.  Each of the films continues Bergman's exploration of existentialist themes - the nature of identity, the meaning of reality and the difficulty of living in a world filled with irreconcilable contradictions.

Stylistically, these three films could hardly be more different.  Whereas the first two are filmed in high-contrast black-and-white and have a grim claustrophobic intensity, The Passion of Anna is shot in colour and feels much looser, less confined, and far more naturalistic.  However, the similarities between the films are as striking as the differences and lead one to conjecture that they depict not three separate stories, but the same story, seen from three different perspectives.  One possible clue to the relationship between the films is in the inclusion in The Passion of Anna of a short sequence from Shame to represent part of a dream.   The hint is there that, perhaps, the whole of Shame is a dream, or maybe a twisted reinterpretation of the world as seen by Anna.

Mental derangement features heavily in all three films, and in each film Liv Ullmann plays a character who is either obviously unhinged or else looking as if she might be teetering on the brink of insanity. Assuming that Ulmann's character is the linchpin to each film, it is plausible that what the films are showing are a single mind that is fragmenting into various pseudo-realities - states that exist between reality and imagination.  For this character, reality as we know it (or rather, as we think we know it) has ceased to have any meaning.

A more evident connection between the films is the idea that an individual's identity can be strongly affected by external forces.  In Hour of the Wolf, it is the bleak, solitary landscape in which the story takes place which results in the mental collapse of the main protagonist. In Shame , the experience of war completely changes the way a husband and wife behave towards one another, ultimately ruining their relationship. In The Passion of Anna, it is the senseless killing of livestock by an unknown maniac that leads to the breakdown in trust and affection between Andreas and Anna.

The idea that external factors help to shape our personalities is not new to the science of psychology.  The traumas we experience in life can be ascribed, at least in part, to the conflict between two halves of our being - an inner self which is immutable and an outer shell that is constantly being moulded by external influences.   This idea, that every individual has not one single identity but is in fact a composite of two distinct entities (the static interior and malleable exterior), is one which recurs a great deal in Bergman's work - most apparently in The Silence (1963) and Persona (1966).

Although The Passion of Anna is the least structured of the three films - it lacks the narrative cohesion of its two predecessors and makes use of some slightly misjudged deconstruction devices (such as narrative breaks in which the actors talk about their characters) - it is probably the most effective in expressing what Bergman had intended.  There is certainly a very distinct change in technique and emphasis from what went before - a prelude to the intense psychological dramas that were to follow, namely Cries and Whispers (1972) and Scenes from a Marriage (1973).

Whilst it explores some dauntingly complex themes, The Passion of Anna is strangely one of Bergman's most alluring films.  Sven Nykvist's achingly beautiful colour photography captures the savage splendour of the island of Fårö, a potent visual metaphor for the unfathomable forces that take possession of the protagonists in this unpredictable emotional drama.   Add to that some mesmeric performances - Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson making an effective contrast with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann - and the result is one of Bergman's most compelling and revealing explorations of the human psyche.

Film Synopsis

After the break-up of his marriage, Andreas Winkelman takes to a life of solitude on a bleak Scandinavian island.  His neighbours are Elis, an architect, and wife Eva, who are taking care of Anna, a woman who recently lost her husband and son in a terrible car accident.  Eva confides in Andreas that her marriage is a sham - Elis is only interested in his work and his hobby as an amateur photographer.  After a brief affair with Eva, Andreas finds himself drawn to Anna.  They have much in common - both are haunted by their past, and so it seems natural they should find comfort in each other's company.  But Andreas knows something about Anna's past which leads him to think she is concealing the truth about her marriage...