Sometimes it grieves me that I have never loved anyone. I don't think I've ever been loved either. It really distresses me.
We're emotional illiterates. We've been taught about anatomy and farming methods in Africa. We've learned mathematical formulas by heart. But we haven't been taught a thing about our souls. We're tremendously ignorant about what makes people tick.
I can't abide this cold light directed on my every endeavor. How I battle with futility. I try to cheer myself up thinking "that life is what you make of it". But those are empty words. I want something to long for.
We're pitiful, self-indulgent cowards that can't connect with reality and are ashamed of ourselves.
I have a mental image of myself,which doesn't correspond to reality.
I have the capacity to love, but it's all been bottled up. The life I led has stifled my potential. The time has come to change that. The first step is divorce. My husband and I block each other in some deadly way.
Something peculiar is happening. My senses, sight, hearing, touch are starting to fail me. Say this table for example, I can see it and touch it. But the sensation is diminished and dry. It's the same with everything. Music, scents, faces, and voices. Everything seems puny, gray, and undignified.
I turned and looked at the photo of my class at school, taken when I was ten. I seem to detect something that had eluded me previously. To my surprise I must admit that I don't know who I am. Not at all. I've always done as I was told. As far as I can remember, I have been obedient, well-adjusted, almost meek. My entire upbringing was aimed at making me agreeable.
Actually, I could quote more if I want. But these should be enough. From my very first Bergman film, Persona, I find his films so quotable, so touching, so real, so powerful, so poetic, so close to our human emotions. Because this is what Bergman is interested in - humanity.
This film is one of his most approachable film. Unlike other films I have seen of his, there isn't any dream or fantasy sequence. Basically just two people talking for nearly 3 hours long. This film was originally a six-episode TV series total of 295 minutes broadcasted in Sweden cut down to 167 mins.
But, oh my, how honest, heartbreaking, true, and tumultuous this film is. To see a Johan and Marianne in and out of a relationship over twenty years, experiencing all the pain, loss, love, hate, anger, jealousy, denial, sadness, and so on that finding one's soul-mate brings, stretched out long-term. I personally felt very connected with the characters in the film and Bergman himself. I have read his autobiography. I can see how Johan is the reflection of Bergman himself. He poured his soul into films, and wrote this epic house drama from his own personal experiences in five marriages. This is the best a drama could get, not a twisted ending.
Bergman gets my tears everytime...
I'm speechless... Bergman has knocked me out again.
"For the sad, the depressed, the sleepless, the confused, the frightened, the lonely. "
Is it really important not to lie, to speak so that everything rings true? Can one live without lying and quibbling and making excuses? Isn't it better to be lazy and lax and deceitful?
Anaesthetise me... throw me away! No, I can't, I can't take any more! Leave me alone! It's shame, it's all shame! Leave me alone! I'm cold and rotten and indifferent! It's all just lies and imitation, all of it!
"The anxiety we carry with us, all our broken dreams, the inexplicable cruelty, the fear of death, the painful insight into our earthly condition...have worn out our hope of a divine salvation. The cries of our faith and doubt against the darkness and the silence are terrible proof of our loneliness and fear."
