Viskningar och Rop (Cries and Whispers) poster & wallpaper

Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin

When a woman dying of cancer in turn-of-the century Sweden is visited by her two sisters, long repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.

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7,112 ratings

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27 critics

R, 1 hr. 31 min.

Directed by: Ingmar Bergman

Release Date: December 21, 1972

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DVD Release Date: June 19, 2001

Stats: 527 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (527)

  • her69eyes
    February 8, 2009
    her69eyes
    Remember the final half hour of "Terms of Endearment"? When the dying mother says goodbye to her children in perhaps one of the most heart wrenching scenes in the past twenty(ish) years of film history? "Cries and Whispers" is the anti-"Terms of Endearment". We don't see a loving...( read more) mother, still beautiful, bidding her children farewell. These scenes are replaced with harrowing screams - the kind that, to use the cliche, makes hair stand up on the back of your neck. If you excuse vulgarities and torture porn, a more disturbing picture you're unlikely to find. Rarely do you see families so monstrous and selfish, or death depicted so horrifyingly and bleakly.

    It's said that Ingmar Bergman uses film as a method to exorcise his personal demons. For instance, Bergman, an agnostic, releases a film like "The Seventh Seal" which is largely about debating the afterlife. "Religion" is an easy release to cite, however, as Bergman grapples with a numerous amount of troubles and guilts in his body of work. His films, like the films of many other great directors, serve as therapy.

    "Cries and Whispers" centers around the death of Agnes (Harriet Andersson). She's sick with some kind of cancer, and now her two sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann), have come to spend time with her in her final days. This isn't a nostalgic and loving family affair, however, as the sisters are there as if it were a chore. The only woman that legitimately cares and sympathizes with Agnes is Anna (Kari Sylwan), the caring maid. If you look in an art history book, she'll resemble most mothers you'll see - with the Pieta, for example, being cited at the end of the film.

    The timeline of the film is challenging and very anecdotal. There are dream sequences, flashbacks, journal entries, etc. In the chilling flashback of Karin, we see her stick a shard of glass inside her to avoid sleeping with her husband. She lays on the bed before him, her crimson legs wide open, smearing blood on her grinning face. In a flashback of Maria, we see her husband drive a sharp object through his stomach in an effort to commit suicide, and Maria could care less. These are divided with close ups of the human face (Roger Ebert stated that no other director has done so much with the human face, which is hard to argue), and the transitions fade to a sharp red rather than the typical black. Red is the primary color of the film, "the inside of the human soul", as Bergman states in the screenplay.

    I don't know if i've ever seen more beautiful cinematography in a film. I feel like this entire response to the film is an extended cliche, but to use another, you could hang any frame of the film on your wall and it'd be unmatched art.

    "Cries and Whispers" is terribly dark - perhaps, even, one of the most wrenching films you'll ever see. But it's also an enormously effective masterpiece. A must see.
  • JeT0425
    June 2, 2008
    JeT0425
    Cries and Whispers (1972)
    director: Ingmar Bergman
    starring: Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Erland Josephson

    Review coming soon.
  • dooritor1
    April 21, 2008
    dooritor1
    Oh this is the one with all the sister comeradery... wicked emotion involved. like hardcore, gut gripping, mind blowing emotion.
  • habitualdamnation
    February 4, 2008
    habitualdamnation
    Dammit this is a horror movie innit!
  • gilbertgumphrey
    August 25, 2007
    gilbertgumphrey
    For the past year, I've been anticipating Ingmar Bergman's death. I mean, the man was what, 89 years old? I knew it was going to happen soon, so I planned out in advance what I was going to do - have a Bergman Movie Marathon the day he died, watching all of his films that I own...( read more). Then, unfortunately, about a month ago I read the news he had passed away. Even though I was expecting it, it still hit me hard, and I was actually really depressed. I started the marathon with The Seventh Seal, his best film, then went on to Cries and Whispers. Sadly, I wasn't able to watch any more - my friends came over for a city trip I didn't know about and then instead of writing this review, sort of a minor tribute to the man and his work, I had to go on vacation the day after. So now here's the review/tribute, a month after his death. Cries and Whispers is not Bergman's greatest film, but it's close, and it's certainly his most heart breaking and emotionally resonant. We all know (ok, let me rephrase - the snotty ones on this website all know) the story of Ingmar Bergman and how he was brought up into this world by a very strict Lutheran family and eventually learned to fear God, the unknown, the afterlife, and made a living making films about this fear. The Seventh Seal asks the questions most directly - I mean, the main character literally plays chess with Death. But by the time Cries and Whispers came along, Bergman had matured and found himself able to ask these questions with more subtley. I mean it when I say in terms of filmmaking style, I'm most inspired by Scorsese - but when it comes to narrative style, I'm most inspired by Bergman. His movies are stories told on film. They have little in the way of plots - most of them are simply about lost and confused people wandering through life, trying to get answers, trying to understand the meaning of it all, and with all these characters, Bergman was thinking and feeling the same things. Ok. Back to Cries and Whispers. It's unlikely that there's too many films out there that are more difficult to watch; more heart wrending, more painful. The movie is about a woman who is dying. She has two sisters who are cold and distant, and is mostly taken care of by Anna, the caregiver, who has lost her daughter and treats the dying woman delicately and passionately. This, however, is not a Hollywood Deathbed Movie, where the dying person (think Sweet November or Walk to Remember) somehow gets more beautiful the more they die. Not with Bergman. This woman is in severe pain, and we see it all the way. She moans in agony, she sweats buckets, tears stream out of her as fast as her screams and profanities. She clutches at the bedspread, slashes through the air, and we realize with a sinking heart that this isn't a movie character who will make a miraculous recovery who enjoy a quiet, fade-out death and ascention to heaven. She's gonna die, it's gonna hurt, and, Bergman seems to be telling us, that's the way it usually is. After she dies, about halfway through the movie, the film focuses on the tormented sisters. To describe them as heartless wouldn't be true - they have hearts, they've just forgotten about them. Take the coldest, the oldest one. One night, in a flashback, she inserts shattered glass shards into her vagina. To cause herself pain? No. To cause her husband pain, who wanted to have sex with her that evening. The scene is so painful, so cringe-worthy, that everyone who thinks Saw is gruesome should see what real-life violence filtered through Bergman's eyes can be like. But this isn't a physically violent movie. It's an emotionally violent one. When the youngest sister desperately tries to become close with the oldest, and practically forces a kiss on her, the oldest screams and lashes out with a verbal tirade that is both sad and true. It is, in fact, the most violent moment of the film, and it's almost all words and screams. To watch Cries and Whispers is to see Bergman at the height of his powers as a filmmaker and an artist, and as hard as it is to watch, you will never forget it. Indeed, "artist" is an appropriate term for his work and specifically for this film - never has a particular colour been more important to a flick's success than here. The colour red streams out at the viewer. All the walls and carpet in the house are a stark, impenetrable red. The transitions are never to black or to white, but blinding crimson. Bergman once said all of his films could be in black and white except Cries and Whispers, and he's correct. Sigh. What a life. What a career. Watching The Seventh Seal and Cries and Whispers back to back, the reality of him no longer being in this world hit me, and hit me hard. We lost one of the greatest artists of all time with Bergman's passing. These two films, more than any other (even though he has many, many more masterpieces and treasures to discover), showcase his talents, his ideals, his philosophies, his agonies. My msn name, still, is "RIP Ingmar Bergman...I hope you've now finally found the answers to your questions". That's the biggest release I can think of - knowing that his whole life was a pursuit of an answer and now, through death, he has discovered it. As shattering as Cries and Whispers is, it ends on a hopeful note. Anna reads a diary entry from a while back of the deceased, when her disease wasn't as severe and she enjoyed a day out in the autumn beauty with her sisters and Anna. She says, and these are the last lines of the film, "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much." Beautiful words, beautifully said, and they encapsulate Bergman's life and career. I only hope that, on his own deathbed with hopefully considerably less pain than this main character eventually experienced, that these words crossed through his own mind as well. Rest in Peace, Ingmar Bergman.
  • ElCochran90
    November 9, 2009
    ElCochran90
    Review coming someday...

    100/100
  • RThornhill
    August 7, 2009
    RThornhill
    recommended by several flixster friends.
  • Soundsofmadness
    March 28, 2009
    Soundsofmadness
    No thankyou - Not interested
  • wotansschwert
    March 12, 2009
    wotansschwert
    despite the visually transfixing cinematography, the subject matter is very intense, no matter how simple the plot...it's quite hard to watch. Bergman deliberately restricts the view and focuses on the tortured characters. very deep and depressing
  • littlecharmer1959
    February 15, 2009
    littlecharmer1959
    I think I need a break from Bergman, he leaves me emotionally drained!

    "Cries and Whispers" focuses on three sisters, one of which is in her last days of her struggle with cancer. Ullman, Thulin and Andersson who play the sisters each put in an amazing performance, though not ...( read more)to forget Kari Sylwan, who is equally as impressive as Anna the maid.
    "Cries and Whispers" is by no means easy to watch, some of the scenes wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie. The scenes before Karin's (Andersson) death were particularly distressing and realistic. Then of course there is that famous mutilation scene.
    I know alot of the reviews here have already mentioned Bergman's use of the colour red and Sven Nykwist's cinematography but it really is outstanding. Bergman himself said that " 'Cries and Whispers' is an exploration of the soul, and ever since childhood, I have imagined the soul to be a damp membrane in varying shades of red."
    One of the great Bergman's best in my book.

View All Viskningar och Rop (Cries and Whispers) Reviews

Critic Reviews

August 26, 2002
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Bergman never made another film this painful. To see it is to touch the extremes of human feeling. It is so personal, so penetrating of privacy, we almost want to look away. full review

View more Viskningar och Rop (Cries and Whispers) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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