The Blessed Ones (1986 TV Movie) User Reviews

Through the dark, glassy

[muziomarini · 9/10 · 13 February 2011]

David Lynch loves Ingmar Bergman; David Lynch loves Francis Bacon. Did Ingmar Bergman love Francis Bacon? Nobody knows, yet in this case he outclassed Lynch himself in Bacon-inspired dwelling on nightmarish ghastly room imagery. The most dazzling thing in this bewilderingly mazy art piece (dark glasses suit well) is that his aged, brooding auteur is never sick and tired of being sick and tired. Prompted by a veritable imp of perversity, Bergman seems to lose his faith in faith whilst gathering flesh and weight in the perusal of its horrific epiphanies.

Once thrown Satan in the blissful reign of hell, God seems to take his place in the patronage of Evil. The 'two blessed' are therefore haunted by God in an 'endorcism' that is much more appalling than any possession by Satan could ever hope to be. In hear naive trust, Viveka (Harriet Andersson's acting is beyond any praise, and for the whole footage her face captures an uncanny likeness - "Persona" docet - with Ingrid Thulin's, as much as now and then Per Myrberg's features overlap the 'mask' of Erland Josephson, while we hardly recall the bold gallery of "Fanny & Alexander" portraits to recover the memory of Christina Schollin - here starring as Annika - embodying there the farcical and tragic Lydia Ekdahl) is prevented from recognizing the spreading of arsenic, electricity and bloodcurdling mutters through her flat and her brain as insane acts of God (or the neighborhood's?). This fusion of daily routine and preternatural innuendos is so effectively handled and paced that any effort contrived to the same purpose by 70-80's best horror movie artisans or even by Roman Polanski wilts beside it. Film-making is not salvation; nor it is an exterior point of view from which the director or the spectator can shed a light of rationality. We are not born guilty: we are guilty to be born.

Viveka and Sune are overwhelmed by the fetishistic 'signs' of a paradoxically true faith that walks hand in hand with a genuinely true despair: veils, curtains, candles, sunglasses, umbrellas, ominous embroidered pillows and ominous drawings dropped like poison through the mail-slot. The majestic consolation established in the first awe- inspiring shot with the terracotta facade of Uppsala Cathedral, turns to agoraphobic self-reclusion in the apotropaic lumber room overlooked by the symbol of a creepy pop-eyed Seer (a metamorphic betrayal of its Gothic outlines - the spires and the rose window - as much as the friendly shadows of its interior reveal their conspiracy in the slices of darkness spluttered among the chambers of a deadly matrimonial stage).

There is no hope to quench the agony of mind because there is no real point in relief or healing. Now both whispers and cries are useless, when every utterance mingles in the thick layers of a hopelessly anti-symbolic photography. Bacon himself had given up shouting at this time.

Harrowing two handed television drama

[runamokprods · 8/10 · 7 November 2014]

Harrowing and sad, this drama made for TV focuses on the tragically dysfunctional marriage of Viveka and Sune. Viveka is slowly going ever more insane, with paranoid and often religiously based delusions driving her further and further from reality. Meanwhile, her husband Sune is pathetically co-dependent, and unwilling to force Viveka into treatment, or even really challenge her misguided view of reality, choosing instead to play along, hoping to ease her panic and rage, but only feeding it. Eventually it becomes unclear if Per is starting to share her delusions as well.

Per Myberg and Harriet Andersson give superlative performances in this blacker than black piece, which also has moments of incredibly dark humor mixed in as well. In a career of questioning whether life has any meaning, I don't know if Bergman ever went further into the abyss.

Occasionally it will hit a false note, or feel theatrical in concept or execution, and the writing isn't always as strong as the greatest of Bergman's films (he didn't write the screenplay). But it certainly is worthy of being seen by anyone interested in Bergman's work, or in great acting, and it's a shame that finding it is so nearly impossible.

A powerful drama from the master

[lor_ · 18 April 2023]

My review was written in February 1987 after a Midtown Manhattan museum screening.

Ingmar Bergman returns powerfully to several of his key themes: man's loss of faith, God's silence and the resulting despair in the modern world, in the 1986 Swedish tv production "The Blessed Ones", preemed Stateside at New York's Museum of Broadcasting.

The program reunites the master filmmaker with writer Ulla Isaksson, who collaborated on "The Virgin Spring" and "Brink of Life", and is of special note as a show shot on videotape, something of a departure for the filmmaker.

Harriet Andersson toplines as Viveka Burman, an art teacher turning 50 who has unresolved hate for her late parents and sister Annika (Christina Schollin) while clinging to the love and solidarity of he4r husband Sune (Per Myrberg) for solace. In brief opening scenes set in a cathedral in Uppsala and on a train, we learn of Viveka's still-vivid childhood traumas (such as her fright at being given a pillow with an all-seeing eye embroidered on it, which she still sleeps with) as well as Sune's bitter memory of failing to make the priesthood, becoming a crafts teacher instead.

Seven years later, on Viveka's 50th birthday, Sune's proposed vacation trip back to Uppsala is scorned as are well wishes by sister Annika. Viveka is consumed by self-loathing, claiming she is evil and was destined from childhood to turn out bad. As evidence of this, she recalls how, as a child, she wanted to kill God and even kill Santga Claus when mama took her to sit on his lap.

With Sune trying his damnedest to comfort her and support her, Viveka's growing paranoia gradually infects him and they both spiral downward towards suicide. It's a desperately bleak picture as only Bergman could capture to the fullest. He uses some inspired black humor to keep it watchable, peaking in a wild sequence where Viveka hangs an umbrella upside down over the kitchen table to keep the arsenic she imagines some terrifying, unnamed "they" are pouring through the ceiling off the food.

Of course, there's no sugarcoating of the piece's message or tacked-on happy ending from the maestro. It is only in Sune's incredible loyalty and self-sacrifice to his mate that any hope is offered in this microcosm of alienated modern man. The casual viewer may shrug the whole thing off as a particularized horror story, as do the Burmans' neighbors, who ironically call the couple "the blessed ones", meaning they're a couple of loonies. Bergman buffs will easily find the universal messages, however.

Andersson, whose dozen appearances for Bergman date back 35 years to their international breakthrough films "Monika" and "The Naked Night", is chilling in the central role. It is amazing how such a vivacious and beautiful actress is transformed here (as she was in "Cries & Whispers") into a grotesque shell, a triumph of acting as well as clever techniques, such as a low-angle, distorted bathroom mirror shot which amplifies her angular facial features. Myrberg underpalys beautifully as her sounding board and, although the piece is written as basically a two-hander, Schollin makes a telling support appearance.

Though on videotape, Bergman lenses the show in the style of a film, with reverse-shot cutting in the dialog scenes and even some evocative exterior transitions shot on location. Of special note is his editing, executed by Sylvia Ingemarsson, which crisply moves swiftly from the climax of a scene to the next setup while being seamless during a scene.

The many shock effects, including amplified sound and sudden movement in the frame, are suitably harrowing.