The Sacrifice (1986)

The Sacrifice (1986; Offret) was one of Nathan Beard’s answers for ‘What movie would you want to watch when the world ends?’ when we held the VHS Tracking – Live event for Blue Room Theatre a year or so ago. I always had it in mind to watch because of that, alongside my ongoing journey […]

Hour Of The Wolf (1968)

Ingmar Bergman had always been a blind spot in my film knowledge. To be honest, I was compelled to finally watch more of his work due to an A24 podcast conversation between Ari Aster and Robert Eggers where they talked at length about his influence on their work in horror. That and the availability of […]

Winter Light (1963)

Continuing my education into the work of director Ingmar Bergman, I picked Winter Light (1963; Nattvardsgästerna) to watch next. Mostly on the basis that it’s one of the big inspirations for Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. In that movie, it was a struggling priest dealing with a suicidal parishoner obsessed with climate change apocalypse – here, […]

Cries And Whispers (1972)

Ingmar Bergman is a director whose filmography I’ve always chided myself for not knowing more about. For the longest time, I hadn’t seen any of Bergman’s films until I finally watched The Seventh Seal a few years ago, and I was surprised at how funny it was even with its iconic existential imagery (playing chess […]