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Rating:  - INGMAR BERGMAN, OPUS 21
***** 1960. Directed by Ingmar Bergman. A prize in Cannes and Academy award in the Best Foreign Language Film category. This adaptation of a ballad of the XIVth century tells the story of a young virgin who's raped in the forest by three vagrants while riding to the church. I don't know what to admire most in this film: Ulla Isaksson's screenplay that is so keen with its references to fairy tales (the Little Red Riding Hood, for instance) or the description of the antagonism Paganism/Christianism, Sven Nykvist's photography which literally re-creates before our eyes paintings of the Middle Ages or at last the formidable artistic fusion that existed between Ingmar Bergman and his actors. No place for improvisation in Bergman's cinema! I also must praise this Criterion release because of the added boni, such as the 2005 Gunnel Lindblom/ Birgitta Pettersson interview or the recorded seminar given by Ingmar Bergman in the American Film Institute in 1975. Masterpiece.
Rating: - True Masterpiece
With a sublime precise passion the mighty Ingmar Bergman has created, with the beautiful and crisp cinematographer Sven Nykist, a stellar experience in The Virgin Spring, a medieval story of a coming to God through a parent's gravest nightmare.
The swiftness of the story, the space allowed for interpretation, the simplicity of intention; the ominous nature of dream, feeling, omen, impulse-all evenly and gently presented, make for a spectacular film.
The final section, focusing on the (Max von Sydow) father of a murdered maiden, and his will to revenge and blossoming faith is harrowing, with a deafening silence and one of Film's greatest silent screams.
No hyperbole here: The Virgin Spring is a masterpiece of faith, silence, impulse, eternal love and ultimate hope. Highly recommended.
Rating: - A dark parable of sin and vengeance
A virgin spring would be an early spring when the days break bright and clear but the nights are still forbiddingly cold. As one of the characters says, The day began with such promise only to end tragically--or words to that effect. A virgin spring is also that time in a young maiden's life when she is still innocent and has no sense of the hardships to come or the beasts that dwell in the deep dark woods. And a virgin spring may be a miraculous sign from God of clear spring water flowing spontaneously from an hitherto unknown fountain, a place on which to build a church to honor the God that one has offended.
All of these springs are in this riveting masterwork by one of cinema's greatest directors, the incomparable Ingmar Bergman. Light and darkness suffuse the 14th century landscape of a Sweden only partially given over to Christianity. Odin still rules the forests and the glades, the mountain tops and the cold, deep rivers. He is the god of darkness in this film, almost something akin to the devil, worshiped by the bridge keeper shaman with his herbs and by the dark-haired, dark-eyed young servant Ingeri (played with something close to demonic vivaciousness by Gunnel Lindblom). Lightness comes in the form of her privileged stepsister, Karin (Birgitta Pettersson) who is blonde and gets to wear fine clothes and is much loved by her father, Tore (Max von Sydow), and her doting mother, Mareta (Birgitta Valberg).
And so one bright spring day the two young women ride off to town, Karin in her finery carrying candles for the church, Ingeri in her rags many months pregnant with the child of someone who had forced himself upon her, her heart full of jealousy and hate. She has prayed to Odin for harm to come to Karin, for Karin to be taken against her will as she was, for Karin to suffer the humiliation and the pain that she suffered. In fact she has worked a little black magic with a toad in the bread that Karin takes with her.
She says to Karin, it could happen to you if a man puts his hands on your neck and around your waist. But Karin says no she would rebuff such a man, and when she is with child she will be happily married to a man of substance and privilege. But the man is stronger and will take you behind a bush and you won't be able to fight him off, Ingeri insists. Karin slaps her for such insolence.
This is a foreshadowing of events to come. But first they come upon a bridge keeper, an old shamanistic man living alone, a man who collects medicinal herbs and feeds the ravens. He represents the old Norse gods. While they are there Ingeri decides she can't go on. Karin leaves and the bridge keeper presses close to Ingeri to enthrall her with the black magic of the old gods. But she becomes frightened and runs away.
The thing that stays with me the most is the pure animal brutality of the two herders. They had only a sense of greed and ignorance about them. They raped and murdered and stole, and then stupidly sealed their own fate. They seemed almost subhuman.
Von Sydow's Tore is almost like a Norse God. And when he confronted God with "You saw this!" he spoke for everyone who has ever suffered a grievous harm and has wondered why God let it happen. Of course he represents along with his wife, Christianity.
The other thing that stays with me is the harsh life that these Swedes from the 14th century had to live. One imagines how short the spring and how long the winter. And one understands Karin's desire to have fun after being cooped up all winter. The terrible irony that is at the heart of the human condition is this hope of spring which everyone feels so powerfully; and then to have this senseless tragedy ensue defies explanation.
But an explanation is attempted. Bergman points to the girl's vanity and her naivety, to the mother's jealousy of the father who is more loved by Karin, to the way they look down on Ingeri and treat her like a serf who has sinned. Or even to the palpable presence of evil in the world. But the real explanation belongs to something naturalistic, primeval, something dark and cold and bestial in the Swedish woods, something before civilization and before the rule of law.
Indelible is Gunnel Lindblom's Ingeri, a woman-child of the devil almost (Odin would be like the devil to these medieval Christians), embittered and full of hate, but with such an animal presence. The carefully plotted story that allows her to watch her desire for revenge come to life in front of her eyes and then to have her cry out later in guilt and blame herself for what she had done heightens our involvement and deepens the complex tragedy.
Bottom line: one of Bergman's best and that is very good indeed.
Rating: - The Virgin Spring
Classic~! Beautifully done in gorgeous black and white (orthocromatic if I'm not mistaken). Great film~! Ken
Rating:  - Overrated but passable
Jungfrukällan certainly isn't a bad film, but the rabid praise routinely heaped on it seems more the result of film school hype. There's a manufactured hipness and exclusivity quotient at work.
It's far less brutal than, say, any one of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, or even Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, which per Craven was "inspired" by Jungfrukällan (it's ridiculous to say that Last House is a remake of this film). It's no more poignant or philosophical than, say, Evan Almighty, or even Wild Hogs.
However, films like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre entries aren't everyone's cup of tea. Jungfrukällan certainly is more stark and minimalist than more recent popular fare, and there is a lot of symbolism at work here--but there is in almost any film. When I say that Jungfrukällan is not more philosophical than Wild Hogs, that's not to be negatively critical towards Jungfrukällan but to point out that philosophical depth occurs wherever one applies it, and one can apply it to almost anything.
Although a decent film with competent performances and some interesting directorial decisions, at this point in time, Jungfrukällan is more important for its place in the academic canon and its historical position and influence.
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