Shame (Skammen)

Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1968, 103 minutes

One of the bleakest films by a director whose very name could be a synonym for serious, heavy, depressing cinema, Shame is essential viewing. Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman play Jan and Eva Rosenberg, retired musicians who have retreated to simple farming life on an isolated island. The rest of their unnamed country is in the grip of a civil war, which the couple simply want to avoid. Inevitably, of course, this isolationism is impossible. Soon the island becomes a battleground and the Rosenberg's must struggle to survive the exigencies of the war. First one side captures them and makes them give a propaganda interview. Then the other arrests them for collaborating with the enemy. And this is only the beginning. Increasingly, the moral facades of the characters collapse in the face of their apocalypse (and, as is usual for a Bergman film, females come off rather better than males here, with Eva never sinking to the same depths as Jan). So too does the Rosenberg's marriage. The shame of their existence is laid bare for us to see.

The whole thing is rendered in a near documentary style, with eerie silences and a virtual absence of music. Its bleakness is further enhanced by the absence of religious questions. In the late 20th Century it seems that god and the devil, so central to the otherwise similar apocalyptic scenario of The Seventh Seal, are irrelevant. Consequently, all the evil in Shame is down to humanity itself. Certainly, this isn't a comforting thought. Nor is it, in any way, a comforting film. But it is undoubtedly a great one, particularly for the incredibly intense performances of the two leads. Again, for those who find the whole thing a touch too depressing, I will suggest an antidote: Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice, which plays through the same themes - and, indeed, also used the island of Faro as its setting - but provides a slightly more optimistic conclusion.

"A stark, chilling film of incredible despair... Shame effectively illustrates the depths to which civilised humans can descend when their comfort is taken away." - Virgin

Review by Keith Brown
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97