Ingmar Bergman's 'Cries and Whispers' (1972)

[00:00:19] Hello, welcome to another episode of Her Head in Films. I'm Caitlin and I'm your host. On this podcast, I share my thoughts and feelings about the films I watch. They tend to be art house and world cinema. What makes this podcast unique is that I weave together my life experiences with a personal and emotional discussion of film. I explore the impact that cinema has on me and why I connect so deeply to it.

[00:00:45] As I like to say, my head isn't in the clouds. My head is in films. Before this episode begins, I just want to share a brief note. What you're about to hear was recorded before my mother was diagnosed with cancer and before she passed away. I chose not to re-record it because I think there's something sacred in how it captures a moment in time, a version of me that had not yet lived through that loss.

[00:01:10] What's very haunting though is that the film that I discuss in this episode, Cries and Whispers, in many ways ended up foreshadowing what I would go through with my mother. Cries and Whispers is a story about a woman dying and about another woman who stays by her side in those final moments. And in many ways, Cries and Whispers, in many ways, Cries and Whispers, in many ways, that is what happened to me and my mother.

[00:01:37] My mother was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called angiosarcoma in May of 2025 and she passed away on June 14, 2025. It went very quickly. We did not realize how advanced the cancer was. The doctors had actually given us an estimate of six to nine months that she had left and she passed away basically in a month and a half. It was very quick and once she went downhill, it just went so rapidly.

[00:02:07] I took care of her while she was in hospice and I was also her caregiver for five and a half years before this cancer diagnosis. I took care of her because of health issues and disabilities that were unrelated to the cancer diagnosis. She was my last remaining parent. My father died when I was a teenager. I've talked about that often on this podcast. She was my world. She was all that I had left and I was very close to her and my father.

[00:02:36] They really were the only two people who ever truly loved me, who loved me unconditionally, who made me feel special and safe and cared for. I became very close to her after my father passed away. I was 16 when that happened, when he passed and then for the next 20 years, me and her were inseparable. We've pretty much been intertwined my entire life. I've always lived with her and I was always with her and then of course I took care of her as a caregiver for five and a half years.

[00:03:06] And that experience is what I talk about in this episode, Cries and Whispers. I recorded this before her cancer diagnosis and I was talking about being there for her and taking care of her for all these years. And I did not know what was to come. She was my best friend, my soulmate and the love of my life. And I know that she felt the same way about me. I was with her in her final moments.

[00:03:32] I think my experience being with my mother as she died will change forever the way that I see Cries and Whispers. Because I had no way of knowing when I recorded the episode that you're about to hear. I had no way of knowing that my own life would mirror the film. That I would be present with someone I love as they were dying. And nothing prepares you for it. I still don't know how I survived it and how I did it.

[00:04:00] All that I know is that I think the love that I feel, I still feel it. I won't say that I felt it. I'll say that I still feel it. She's been gone a few weeks now. I look at pictures of her and I watch videos. And she's still very present for me and very real. And that love is still there. And the love that I feel for her is what allowed me to be there for her.

[00:04:24] On the day that she died, for much of the day she was gasping for breath a lot. That's how we knew something was wrong. There was space in between her breaths. And so we knew that something was happening. We were preparing ourselves that she might go. That evening I was in the living room. I was by her bed and she was breathing. And her eyes were closed. She was not very lucid near the end. But she was not in pain.

[00:04:54] I am glad that I could give that to her. That in her final weeks, I was there and I took care of her. And she was not in pain. And I made sure that she was not in pain. And I protected her. And I kept her safe. And she knew that she was loved. And she was surrounded by love when she left this earth. And that was my job. That was what got me up every day. That is what got me through the nightmare and the agony of watching her die.

[00:05:22] And that night, I was sitting on the couch near her bed. One minute she was breathing. She took a breath. And then she didn't take any more breaths. And I knew that she was gone. I do find comfort knowing that she was at some kind of peace. And that I was by her side. And that she left this world surrounded by love. It hit me later on that she was there when I took my first breaths. When I came into this world. And I was with her when she took her final breath.

[00:05:51] And it was very sacred. And it was a very holy experience to be with her in those moments. I don't even know if she knew that I was there. But I was. I hugged her body. I kissed her. I told her how much I loved her. I just felt so much love. And so much gratitude. Gratitude that I knew her. That I was with her for close to 36 years. That she was my mother. And that we had each other. We lived for each other.

[00:06:20] We were all each other had. Particularly after my dad passed away. She helped me survive that. She's the reason that I am still alive. Despite that trauma. Her love saved me time and time again. She took a piece of my soul with her. Just like my father took a piece of my soul with him. And inside me is a piece of their souls. And they are part of me. And I will carry them on. And I will remember them. And I will love them forever.

[00:06:49] I will love them. Until I take my last breath. And I am so grateful that they were mine. They were my parents. And that they loved me. Her spirit was so beautiful. And so abundant. The house feels very empty without her. She was full of light. And love. And goodness. She was generous. And caring. And compassionate. She often was not treated the way that she should have been in this world. And she did not always get the love and care that she deserved.

[00:07:18] But I fought. And I did everything I could to make sure that in her final weeks and in her final moments, she was not in pain. And that she was cared for. And that she was loved. I do not know how I will live without both of my parents. It's hard for me to comprehend that they are actually gone. But I know that I will continue to live. I will go on. I will stay connected to life. I will love. I will share my voice. I will listen to the birds.

[00:07:47] And watch the sunsets. And read poetry. I will watch films. I will speak up. I will dream. I will care about other people. I will drink in life. And I will be grateful for every moment that I am here. Because she is a bag of ashes now. And my father is buried in the earth. And I am here. I am here living and breathing. And talking. And recording this episode. And sharing my voice. And sharing how much I love them. And grieve them. And miss them.

[00:08:15] But how precious and beautiful and wonderful they were. And so I will go on. I will keep living. I will keep sharing my voice. And doing all I can to keep them alive. And to remember them. And to honor them. And so I thank anybody who has listened this far. And who listens to this complete episode. At the time that I recorded it. I put my heart and my soul into it. Like I do with every episode for this podcast.

[00:08:44] I'm so grateful for this film. For Cries and Whispers. It now has taken on a meaning. That I never could have imagined. Because in a lot of ways. I was Anna. And I was there with my mother. As she died. And as she left this world. And I was able to give her love. And tenderness. And comfort. And care. And she was not alone. She did not die alone. She died with me by her side. And I am proud of that. And I'm grateful for it.

[00:09:13] That I could give her that. I couldn't. I mean there is no way that I could return the love to her. That she had given to me. There's no way. Because she gave me so much love. There's no way I could repay that. Or give that back. But I felt like all I could give her. Was to be there with her. As she passed away. And to make sure she wasn't in pain. And that she knew she was loved. And she did know that. And I'm so glad for that. So thank you for listening. Thank you to anybody who sent her a card.

[00:09:42] Thank you to the people who reached out to me through email. I will continue to make episodes. And I will continue to share my voice. I will continue to share my deep, personal, passionate emotions about art. And about cinema. I will go on. And I will keep living. And I will survive this. And I will hold on to life. And hold on to my memories. And I will love my parents forever. So I appreciate you listening to this.

[00:10:08] And here is my episode about Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers.

[00:10:33] Today's episode is about Ingmar Bergman's 1972 film, Cries and Whispers. This is a devastating and emotional film about three sisters, Agnes, Karen, and Maria, who are reunited as Agnes is dying. Is in her final days. And she has a maid named Anna, who is also there. And so it's about the relationship between these sisters.

[00:11:02] And it's also about the relationship between Agnes, who is dying, and Anna, the maid, who ends up being the person who primarily takes care of her in those final days. This is a really intense film for me. I will be honest that this episode will be emotional. And I might ramble a little bit. I don't know.

[00:11:31] But I have so much that I want to say about this film. It is one of my favorite Ingmar Bergman films. Right now, I go back and forth about what my favorite Ingmar Bergman film is. For now, it's The Silence. I absolutely love The Silence. And I've considered devoting an episode to that film. And that might happen one day.

[00:11:58] But I would say that second to The Silence is Cries and Whispers. And re-watching Cries and Whispers for this episode, sometimes I think maybe Cries and Whispers is my favorite Ingmar Bergman film. His work takes me over. He is probably my favorite director. It's between Bergman and Krzysztof Kieślowski. And it kind of switches from day to day or month to month. I love both of them deeply.

[00:12:28] Their work affects me on such a molecular level. The thing about Bergman is that he taps into very primal emotions for me. And even this film looks at suffering, isolation, the distance between people, the difficulty of connecting to each other. And that is something that is woven throughout his filmography.

[00:12:58] The gulf between us and other people. You feel it in the silence between the sisters in that film. And for me, Cries and Whispers and the silence almost feel connected. And obviously, Persona as well has some connections to Cries and Whispers. But you see it in Autumn Sonata, a film about a mother and daughter who have a very tortured relationship.

[00:13:28] And I have an episode about Autumn Sonata. And for a long time, that was my favorite Bergman film. He gets at, and I think I said this in Autumn Sonata in my episode about it. He really has this ability or this gift, I guess you could say, at looking at the way we are deprived of love. That we need love from certain people.

[00:13:56] From our mothers, from our sisters or siblings or our parents. Or a spouse or partner or whatever. And how we ache for this love. We need it in order to survive. But we cannot find it. It is about often the way we cannot love each other. Or we cannot get the love that we need. And the profound damage that that does to us.

[00:14:26] That it does to our souls. And as I've gotten older, I'm in my mid-30s at this point. I feel like as I go deeper into life, which is how I see aging. It's how I see getting older. It's like, I've told people this over the years. But a lot of people see aging as like a diminishment. And I'm not saying that there are not difficult things about it. Right?

[00:14:54] And Bergman explores this as well in some of his work. Your mortality becomes more pronounced as you get older. You lose people. You go through things. Your heart is broken more. But also aging as a woman. I guess I'll speak from that perspective. And I love the way that he puts women on the screen.

[00:15:21] And I feel that he often like sees into my soul. And that he often puts my own anguish on the screen. I connect very deeply to some of the female characters in his work. The way I see aging is I don't see it as like this diminishment. I do see it as a deepening. As going deeper into life.

[00:15:46] And with cinema, my taste in films, my taste in cinema or the directors I'm drawn to or the types of films that I'm drawn to has changed as I have gotten older as a woman. I see things differently. I see certain films differently than I did when I was in my 20s.

[00:16:09] I see certain directors, particularly male directors and the way that they represent women, maybe in a more critical light than I sometimes did in my 20s. Because when you get on the other side of 30, you see things differently and you see life differently. As I get older and as I go deeper into life, I find that there are certain directors that I hold closer to my heart.

[00:16:36] And that I connect more intensely to. And Bergman has become one of those directors for me. Where I feel like because he had such a vast body of work and he did films throughout the different stages and ages of his own life, that he touches on very powerful themes. You know, this film is about death.

[00:17:04] This is a confrontational, uncompromising film about death, about illness, about the body. And not just about the body, it's about the sick body, the ill body, the suffering body, the body in pain, right?

[00:17:27] That is what this film is going into, along with the relationship between these sisters, the relationship between women. It's incredibly haunting for me. And it is very personal. I have been through a lot the last few years. And it is one of the big reasons why I stopped doing this podcast. Why I have only done sporadic episodes.

[00:17:55] Why I have struggled to continue to do it. You know, I get really frustrated with sort of the online landscape now in terms of creating things and sharing them. Because there has become this popularization of like content creators. And I guess podcasts would be included in that. I am not a content creator. I am not a content machine.

[00:18:25] I also feel very misunderstood in terms of what this podcast is. I am not trying to be an authority about cinema. I am not trying to be entertaining. And I am not trying to be popular or be somebody in the film world. This is more of an audio diary.

[00:18:51] This is more of a personal exploration or excavation of cinema. And I think some people turn on these episodes because I've gotten some bad reviews over the years. Like really negative reviews. I think some people don't understand what this is. This is a space for me to talk about my life. And for me to share my heart and soul.

[00:19:20] And I think some people put on a film podcast and they want to laugh. Or they want something entertaining. Or they want what they're used to in I guess the podcast landscape. That is not what this is. And I'm not for everybody. I'm not for hardly anybody at this point. I've never been cool. I've never been accepted. I've never fit in.

[00:19:50] I've never been popular. And I've given up even trying at this point. This is a space for me to be free. That's what it is. It's for me to have a voice. And to share that voice with anybody who comes across it and connects to it. And people can always just turn off the episodes. They're free. They're out there. And you're not paying.

[00:20:17] Nobody's paying to listen to my episodes like you would pay to go see a film. Right? You can turn the episode off at any time. And many people do I'm sure. I think at times people are not understanding the project here. And the goal and the mission. The mission is for me to communicate what I feel about the films that I watch. And what I feel may not be what somebody else feels.

[00:20:47] And what I feel about a film is informed by my life and my experiences. And I have been through a lot of pain in my life. And particularly the last few years. And that pain is captured at times in cries and whispers. And I'll talk about that in depth as this episode goes forward. I saw some of my own, you know, wounds in this film.

[00:21:16] And I felt very moved by it as a result. Like I said, I'm not a content creator. I'm a person. The things that started to happen in my life around 2020. I did the podcast for as long as I could. And then my life became too difficult for me to churn out and consistently create episodes. As a lot of things started to disintegrate within me and around me.

[00:21:44] And I'm a person. And everybody who creates something, whether it's a podcast or a book or anything online, that's a person. And we don't live by the algorithm or something. I had to step back. And I wish that I could have continued it for all these years. I wanted to. But I'm one person. I didn't have it in me. I didn't have the time, the energy.

[00:22:12] And even now, I am trying to continue it. Because I started this in 2016. And I've put my heart and soul and my blood and my sweat and my tears into these episodes. They are the only way that I've been able to reach people beyond my little world in the rural south in the United States.

[00:22:36] These episodes are the only way I have been able to make contact with the larger world. They're the only way that I've ever been listened to. My entire life, I've been invisible. I have been disposable. I have been overlooked. I have been ignored. I have been rejected. When I spoke, nobody cared what was coming out of my mouth or what I had to say.

[00:23:04] And the only time I've ever felt like my voice mattered was through this podcast. The last few years, I've been to hell and back. I've been through a lot. And I wasn't able to make episodes in the midst of that. And it's still very hard for me to make episodes. Because I'm a person. And I hate sometimes the way the internet turns us into products. Or turns us into brands.

[00:23:35] Or content. Or the way we turn each other into content. And we forget the soul and the humanity of other people. And this film, it stirred a lot inside me. And when I was thinking about doing more episodes. Because I knew that I wanted to. I also knew that this was the perfect film to explore certain things in my life.

[00:24:04] That I have wanted to find a way to talk about or to share. And so, I just wanted to say that. Like, I think sometimes people turn on my episodes. Or they find my podcast. And they don't really understand what I'm doing. And it's hard sometimes. Like, it's hard to put something out there for other people. I know that it's a risk. But sometimes it's hard to live perpetually misunderstood. You know?

[00:24:32] And people can come across your episodes and totally misunderstand you. Or mischaracterize you. Or judge you. Or criticize you. And I've never handled that very well. Even though I know that I am voluntarily putting this out into the world. But I'm doing it because I think that this has value. This is not just a podcast.

[00:25:02] This is like my creative outlet. This is the way that I express myself. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm not writing a book or doing a painting. These podcasts are my creative offering. I create them. I write the words and think of the words that I say. And so, for me, they're an act of creativity.

[00:25:28] And they're also an expression of what I think and I feel. And of my essence. And who I am. And what I want to say. And so, I know I rambled about that. I wanted to share some quotes from Ingmar Bergman. There's a really great book called Images. And I definitely recommend this book. If you want to know more about Ingmar Bergman's films. He talks individually.

[00:25:58] I think about almost every single film that he did. And there's really great material in there. And I will have all of my sources linked in the show notes of the episode. I've always done that. So, in Images, Ingmar Bergman wrote a few things about cries and whispers. And I wanted to share those quotes. Because I think that they inform my discussion of the film. So, from Images, he wrote,

[00:26:27] Today I feel that in persona, and later in cries and whispers, I had gone as far as I could go. And that in these two instances, when working in total freedom, I touched wordless secrets that only the cinema can discover. Unquote. Wordless secrets that only the cinema can discover. I do think that that is the most powerful thing about cinema. And this is something that David Lynch understood.

[00:26:57] He recently passed away. And that was really sad news. And I think Lynch understood this. A lot of the greatest directors understood this. And cinephiles know this. Is that often when we watch a film, it's about feelings. It's about what the film generates inside of us. And Bergman himself felt like cries and whispers touched something.

[00:27:27] That he got into some kind of depth that he had always wanted to go to. It's interesting. The title, he said, is from a music critic. Who wrote in a review of a Mozart quartet that it was like, quote, cries and whispers. Unquote. So the title of the film is related to that review describing a work by Mozart. I thought that was really interesting.

[00:27:57] And Bergman also said that this was, quote, a consoling film. A film offering solace. If only I could achieve something of that sort, it would be a tremendous load off my chest. Otherwise, it's hardly worth making this film. Unquote. And this is why I think films like the ones that Ingmar Bergman made are so important.

[00:28:21] And this is why I'm also drawn to films that are at times a bit darker. Or they would be seen as very bleak or, I guess, depressing to some people. And I think some people would ask, well, why would you want to watch this? Why would you want to watch a film about a woman dying? A woman in terrible pain and agony. Why would you subject yourself to a film like that?

[00:28:51] And I would argue that at times, and I don't watch films like this every single night or every single day. I would argue that when we see films like this, and sometimes they might put your own pain on the screen.

[00:29:11] Or maybe there's just something about the film that's very powerful for you, even if you don't have personal experience with what's happening on the screen. I find that consoling. Like, I find that to be something that offers me solace.

[00:29:32] And so I do think Cries and Whispers, even though it's dark and it's intense and it's devastating, sometimes devastating films like this are consoling. Because I think they make you feel less alone.

[00:29:53] If you're going through a difficult time in your life and you see a film that mirrors that or reflects it, or you see characters that are struggling with something that you've struggled with, I think it can just remind you, oh, I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one that finds life unbearable at times. I am not the only one who feels so achingly alone, who feels so desperate for love and care.

[00:30:23] That's also what I see in Agnes. I see a woman who just wants love. She just wants to be loved and held and cared about in her final days. And her sisters deny her that from them. They are not able. They are not able to give that to her. And so there are things about the film that you might see, you might see your own life reflected.

[00:30:53] And that can remind you that you're not alone. And I do find that really comforting. And I found it interesting that Cries and Whispers really came out of an image that Bergman had. He said to Sven Nykvist, who was the cinematographer on this film, he said, quote, I've got another idea, something I've dreamt. I see a road and a girl on her way to a large house, a manor house, perhaps.

[00:31:23] She has a little dog with her. Inside the house, there's a large red room where three sisters dressed in white are sitting and whispering together. Do you think it could turn into a film? Unquote. And then he also said, quote, the first image kept coming back over and over. The room draped all in red with women clad in white. That's the way it is. Images obstinately resurface without my knowing what they want with me.

[00:31:52] Then they disappear only to come back looking exactly the same. Unquote. And so it's perfect that one of his books was named Images because that's the material. That's the material that he and other filmmakers are working with are these images. That's why they're very wordless. But that's why I think cinema penetrates and goes beyond language.

[00:32:18] It pierces us in the core of us, the center and the depths of us. There are certain images that will haunt us. And those images are connected to feelings, to memories, to experiences, to traumas. And that is part of the power of cinema for me is it's almost like these images become these breadcrumbs,

[00:32:47] like leading me back to to a feeling or an experience or a memory. Right. And I find that really fascinating. So I wanted to just share some of his own words about the film. And then I will just go through and talk about the film. This is going to be maybe a more unstructured episode. I'm just in the moment.

[00:33:13] I want to share just some thoughts, some emotions, some of my own experiences that I've been going through. I hope that people find value in that. I don't know if this is going to be a very like perfectly organized episode. I think I just want to be very free and just talk in a way that feels really natural for me.

[00:33:41] Cries and Whispers is one of those films that haunts me. I saw it for the first time years ago when I fell in love with Bergman. He was one of the first directors that I watched when I was becoming a cinephile. And immediately his work had an emotional impact on me. And I knew that I had found a director that understood very, very deep things about life.

[00:34:11] And the way that I often describe Cries and Whispers just in my head when I'm thinking about it, to me it is a wound of a film. It's a film that takes me into very deep emotions. And I like that. I like films that take me into deep emotions. And in a way I feel that films are like that red room where Agnes lies in Cries and Whispers. I guess I should say the cast.

[00:34:41] I think I forgot to mention that. Harriet Anderson plays Agnes. Liv Ullman plays Maria. Ingrid Tulin plays Karen. And Kari Silwan plays Anna. I don't know if I said her name right. I apologize. So that's our cast. I feel that films are like that red room where Agnes lies.

[00:35:07] They are these spaces where we enter the deepest parts of the human condition. Pain, rejection, abandonment, agonizing loneliness. Because isn't illness the ultimate loneliness? Agnes is in a situation that is so lonely. She's just in that bed, in that room, in pain.

[00:35:34] And when your body starts to fail, when you are sick, when you are ill, that is probably the loneliest that you will ever be in your life. Because you have to endure that pain alone. Nobody can be in your body. Nobody can take that pain away. They can only witness your pain. Maybe they can hold your hand or they can try to lighten the burden.

[00:36:04] But you have to feel it and experience it. And that's what she has to do. It's almost like this ultimate loneliness. And the film goes into that. And it is film as an art form that can go into that. Film goes into so much. It takes us into all of these parts of the human experience. And ultimately, I think film can take us into what haunts us.

[00:36:30] And Cries and Whispers itself is born from Bergman himself being haunted by an image. Being haunted by something. This is a film, like I said, that is a wound. And it's a film that touches so many wounds. And it goes to the heart of life and death.

[00:36:54] And the agony of being alive inside a body that will ultimately cease to exist. Agnes is all of us. I think that's what I realized as I was watching it this time. Is Agnes is all of us. Karen will be Agnes. Maria will be Agnes. Anna will be Agnes one day. What we are seeing is what all of us will be.

[00:37:20] Maybe not the agony necessarily or the illness in the same way. It's like they're on different sides of the room or something. Different sides of life. And Agnes is separate. Agnes is alone. And they're looking across this distance at each other. Right? It's almost like they're looking across each other. Like across a river at each other. And Agnes is on one side.

[00:37:49] She is the dying and the dead. And the ill. The debilitated. Right? She's been suffering with this illness for years. It's been a prolonged agony for her. And they have watched her suffer over this period of time. And it's like they're on opposite ends of life. Or they're on opposite ends. And they're looking at each other across this distance.

[00:38:19] Agnes is on one side. And then Maria, Karen, and Anna are on the other side. But the thing is, is that none of us, none of us can avoid crossing the river to the other side. To the underworld. To the dead. Because we live in bodies that will end. We live in bodies that will cease to exist. And that I think is what Karen and Maria are terrified of.

[00:38:48] Is that Agnes is this living reminder when she's alive. And then when she's dead as well. She is a reminder of what they themselves are vulnerable to. She is a reminder of their mortality. And that terrifies people. Agnes is in pain. She writes that in her diary. I'm in pain. And this pain separates her from her sisters and from the world.

[00:39:17] She is confined in that red room. And cinema, Bergman cinema, takes us into that red room. And takes us into her world. Her circumscribed world. And Anna is the only one that truly can reach her and comfort her. We are changed when we witness someone else's suffering. And I think the film gets at that.

[00:39:47] One of the things that precipitated me having to step away from the podcast in 2021. Is when I stopped doing it. But in 2020, my mom's health started to decline. And a lot of things happened. I'm not going to go into every detail about it. But I keep it very private. And I don't really share it with people. But a lot has happened since then.

[00:40:17] And I tried to do the podcast for about a year. An additional year after her health started to decline. And I had to step into the role of being a caregiver for her. And physically taking care of her. And watching her suffer. That's basically what I've been through the past five years at this point. And I was able to do episodes for a little while.

[00:40:45] And then it just became too much. I am her primary support. I am her primary caregiver. I mean 24-7. I have to take care of her. I have to do everything for her. And I've had to watch her be in pain. I've had to watch her suffer. And the healthcare system here in the United States is not good.

[00:41:15] It's a nightmare. To be honest. And it's not going to change anytime soon. This is the reality that many people live with. I have been a caregiver for her my entire 30s. I was. I had turned. I turned 31 in 2020. It's been like one of the most painful experiences of my life. Nothing prepared me. Nothing can prepare you.

[00:41:44] It is physically exhausting. It is mentally. Like I don't even have words for it. I feel like when I started to become her caregiver and her health started to deteriorate, I feel like my life took a path totally different from other people. I feel cut off from the world by my experiences. It is lonely.

[00:42:13] It's isolating. It's agonizing. And it changes you forever. It changes you forever. To watch somebody you love suffer. In my 30s, I have watched other people's lives go on. Right? I've watched other people hit milestones or have things that feel impossible for me. I felt my life just collapse and shrink.

[00:42:44] The stress is off the charts. The stress on the mind, the body, it's just terrible. And my life is not like other people's lives. Because other people are not physically taking care of an adult. And watching somebody they love suffer every single day. Most people in their 30s are not doing that.

[00:43:09] They are dating and finding a partner or having children or starting a family. Working on a great career or something. And that is not my life. You know? Or other people are traveling. Or that's not my life. My life is in service to her. And to what she needs. And I live in the rural south. It's very isolating.

[00:43:38] It's hard to connect with people or to have friends. I'm estranged from both sides of my family. So it's basically just me and my mom and her husband. I wish I could put it into words. What my life has been like the past five years. As I try to, I'm not able to. But I wake up every day and I've had... I've just had these moments where I'm like, Why am I here?

[00:44:08] What is the point of my life? Why did I lose my father when I was a teenager? And go through that trauma. Which I still carry. And I still struggle with. And then now, in my 30s, I'm having to watch my mom suffer like this. I can't understand life anymore. I don't always even feel connected to life. I feel like I'm surviving.

[00:44:37] Like I am trying to survive a nightmare. Like I am trying to survive hell. And that's all I can do. What else can I do? So, in a lot of ways, this film made me think about my own life right now. My own situation that I am living. Because I guess I'm like Anna. And then my mom would be more like Agnes. It's just... It's incredibly painful.

[00:45:07] I wish I had words to describe it better. But it has changed me forever. It has restructured my brain, I think. It has torn me apart. It has caused me like a total breakdown at times. I did not handle it well in the first few years. That's why I had to step away in 2021 as well. Is that I emotionally was just falling apart. Other things were happening.

[00:45:37] The pandemic was going on. Other stuff occurred. And I just could not bear my life. And I just had like a total breakdown from the pain. It's been really hard. I don't know if I've ever felt so alone in my life at times. It is just so lonely. Witnessing suffering is... It's unspeakable.

[00:46:01] And what I've realized through this experience is that grief is not a one-time thing. I feel like grief is like this constant companion. It's something that never fully goes away in our lives. Our relationship with grief is one that evolves over time. I thought I knew grief. But I'm learning as I get older, as I go through this experience of being a caregiver in particular.

[00:46:31] I realized that I did not know grief the way that I thought I did at 16 when I buried my father. That there's always more to learn about grief. That my relationship with it is going to be lifelong. That there's never going to be a day that I wake up and I don't feel grief. And I think for a long time, I couldn't carry the grief. Or I wanted it to go away.

[00:46:57] Or I thought there would come a day when I would wake up and, oh, I'm not going to be grieving. But actually, it is just embedded in my life at this point. I'm always discovering new layers of grief and new forms of grief. It reveals itself to me day by day. There's the grief of losing my father. There's the grief of being a caregiver for my mother now. There's the grief of my lost dreams.

[00:47:26] The things that I dreamed about for my life that are not going to happen. There's the grief of not being able to go back to the past. Back to a better time in your life. You know, the grief of nostalgia. There is the grief of aging. There is the grief of getting older. There's the grief of, for me, never knowing romantic love. Never being in a relationship. Never having a partner.

[00:47:52] Never having a man love me and care about me in that way. The grief of not having a family of my own. So I realized that I'm never done with grief. That we're never really done with grief. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that grief is never done with us. That it never fully goes away. And I think that there is deep grief in Cries and Whispers.

[00:48:16] Because the thing about Agnes is that she's this woman existing on the nebulous borderland between life and death. And Agnes wants to live. She wants to live. She fights death. She resists it. We all have to resist it. And she does. She fights for her life. And she wants to live. And she's grieving the life that she is losing. And she's actually grieving that life for years.

[00:48:43] People who are in pain like that and go through a prolonged illness, there must be terrible grief that comes with it. I can't think of a lot of other films that show so brutally what it's like to care for another human being as they suffer. And what it requires of you. I mean, I think what I've learned the most through this experience is that love, love is not just a feeling.

[00:49:12] And it is not just something that you say. Love is attached to action. You know, I have to take care of her every day. I don't get a day off. I don't get to go out places. I don't get to have my own independent life. I have to be here and take care of her. I have to make that sacrifice. Love, at times, is a sacrifice.

[00:49:37] Love requires things of us that sometimes we feel like we cannot even give. I have days when I feel like I cannot do it. That I cannot live another day like this. And yet I do it. I don't know of many films that just show how brutal it is to be part of that. To be part of somebody's suffering. And to have to be the one to try to soothe it. That's what Anna's trying to do.

[00:50:07] She lives in service to Agnes. And she tries to soothe Agnes. So this is not just a film for me in a lot of ways. This is something that I have lived. And like I said, these years have changed me into what I don't know yet. What I am becoming. Or how much I'm being changed. Sometimes we don't know until years later what an experience has done to us.

[00:50:35] The process is ongoing. And the pain is a living thing to be endured each day. The wound is open. It is open. It is pulsating. It is bleeding. It is not over. I think we see through Agnes that as one suffers, everyone falls away. People leave. They ignore you. They neglect the one who is suffering. They flee from the one who is suffering.

[00:51:05] My mom has lived it. And my dad, before he died as well. Before my dad died, he had health issues that I watched him go through for about three years when I was a teenager. So when I was 13, my dad started to have health issues. And then he passed away when I was 16. And I watched him suffer as well. And the thing is, is that when I was a teenager, I didn't know how to help him.

[00:51:31] I didn't know what to do because I was scared and frightened. Because when you watch your parents suffer, you don't know what to do. But then now, as an adult, I carry a lot of guilt about that. I feel like I didn't say the right things or I didn't do the right things. And I feel a lot of guilt that maybe I failed him and I wasn't a good daughter.

[00:51:57] And I didn't show the care that I should have because I was just a girl. I was just a child. And I was scared. I didn't understand what was happening to him and stuff. People fall away. When my dad was suffering, nobody was there. Nobody was there except me and my mom. We were there for him. And now with my mom, I'm there for her. Other people in her family, they don't call her.

[00:52:27] They don't keep in touch. They don't check in on her. People just disappear. Like Karen and Maria. These experiences have made me who I am. And I try to share them on this podcast. And I know this is raw. I know this is not easy to listen to. I don't know who listens. Sometimes I'm like, why would anybody want to listen to me talk about cries and whispers and about my own tragedies and stuff like that?

[00:52:56] I know that not many people listen to me. But I try to speak about what matters. And I try to articulate my own perspective of life and the world. And I feel like what I'm talking about a lot is like the void. That's also what I'm trying to put into words. I go into myself and I tear out what's inside me. And I try to offer that. I go inside.

[00:53:25] I go to my own depths. I'm not afraid of it. I'm not afraid of these feelings. And I just offer them in case others can understand. And that's what I'm trying to get at with this film. That's what I'm trying to articulate. There's just such a power about the film in that way. The red. The red is like, I don't know if I've seen a red like what is in this film. That red room that Agnes is in.

[00:53:54] And red is all throughout that big cold manor. Right? And the film begins with red. Red comes up throughout the film. Certain scenes fade into just a screen of red. I was trying to describe this red because it's like an orangey red. Right? And to me, it's like the underside of our eyelids. Like when you're laying in the sun or something.

[00:54:22] And the light hits your eyelids. It almost reminds me of that kind of red. And I feel like Bergman gets at the underside of life. And I've seen many of his films. I've seen almost 20 of his films. And I have to say that I do feel that he touched something very primal. And very profound in this film. Something that it is consoling. And it is comforting.

[00:54:49] And it lingers in a way that not all films linger. Obviously because of the personal aspect for me personally. But it was one of my favorite Bergman films. But even before things happened with my mother. And I became a caregiver for her. And I feel like it's a feeling almost before it is a film. And he captured a feeling inside the film. But I don't know how to even articulate that feeling.

[00:55:18] Or I guess that's what I'm trying to articulate. You know, when I think about the void. We tend to think of the void as dark. As black. That's sort of what we think of. We think of like a black hole in space. We think of something without light or color. And I wonder if like Cries and Whispers is like a different kind of void. Like a red void. Or could the void be red actually?

[00:55:46] Like it's the red of a wound of course. And of blood. But there's also something about the void in this film. Maybe that's what he touches. Because he's going into death. He's going into like he goes right into it. Like the nothingness. But it's so interesting that he chose red. And it's very important to note that Anna. And I forgot to mention this earlier. Anna has lost her daughter.

[00:56:14] And this is such a central part of her relationship with Agnes. And Agnes has lost her mother. In the film Agnes thinks about her mother. The figure of the mother hangs over this film. It is looking at maternal love. It is looking at the maternal aspect of women's lives. And the mother is a very powerful figure. This is why the film is even deeper for me. Is that I'm taking care of my own mother.

[00:56:44] And in a way. I will never have children. I never wanted children. For I thought I didn't want children. But when you get in your 30s. I don't know. Sometimes I think maybe I did want children. And I never really have the choice. Because if you're never in a relationship. Then you don't really get the choice to have children. And in a way. What's happened through me taking care of my mother. Is like I have become the mother to my mother. Right?

[00:57:14] Like when you become a caregiver. I guess in my situation. I have become the mother figure. I have become the maternal figure. And when you care for someone. Maybe that's what you're accessing. Is that maternal part of you. And Anna is a mother without a child. And Agnes is a child without a mother. In a lot of ways. By the end of the film. She's like in a fetal position.

[00:57:40] So there is something almost childlike about Agnes. So it's very important that Anna and Agnes have each other. They fulfill something. They're almost like each other's missing piece. Or missing half in a way. The sisters lost their mother 20 years earlier. And Agnes often thinks about her. So she's still grieving her mother. Or I think she's grieving her mother. Maybe she's not.

[00:58:08] But Anna herself is a grieving mother. And she becomes like the substitute mother to Agnes. As Agnes dies. It's so interesting. Because with birth. We come out of the womb. Which is like a void. And think of the redness of the womb. Think of the blood of the womb. That we come out of. I mean think of Frida Kahlo's painting my birth. And how bloody that is. Think of the placenta. We are born from red.

[00:58:38] From the red of our mother's bodies. And in a way. Like when we die. We return to nothing. We come from nothing. And we return to nothing. I'm not religious. And it's just so interesting how the womb. If you think about it. It probably is red. I mean with the blood. I mean I don't know. Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm making all this up. But like when a baby's born. The blood is red.

[00:59:07] It's almost like Agnes is being. Taken back into. The redness. And the wound. Or the womb. So interesting how womb and wound. Those words are sort of connected. She comes from her mother's body. And then when she dies. She's with Anna. And with Anna's body. And it's almost like a return to the mother's body. In a way. I mean you could argue. If you're buried in the earth. You know mother earth.

[00:59:36] I think there is a longing often to return to the womb. You know. To return to that place. The thing about Agnes and her real mother. Is that they had a very painful relationship. The mother was cold toward Agnes. And yet Agnes still loves her. She says that she understands her better as she gets older. But the mother is fundamentally very cold toward Agnes. And that's something that really haunts her.

[01:00:05] And there is a coldness about the film. It's the coldness of these women. Of their misery. Of their inability to connect. It's the coldness of Karen and Maria. And Anna is such a counterpoint to that coldness. She's warm and earthy and maternal. Even her body is different. Ingrid Tulin. There's a nude scene at one point. Ingrid Tulin's very thin. You know.

[01:00:33] And like Liv Ullman is as well. And Anna. That actress. She's more voluptuous. She has larger breasts in particular. Which is very important for the scenes with Agnes. Where she offers her breasts. That is our first nourishment. Is our mother's body. Usually. You know. Particularly if you were breastfed. That is like your first. Your first food. Your first nourishment. And it comes from the female body.

[01:01:02] Anna is such a counterpoint to the coldness. She's like the only warmth. She's like the only light. In that house. Honestly. I feel like I understand Bergman's films even more as I get older. I was talking about that earlier. Because I go through more heartbreak. More abandonment. Other experiences. That reveal to me.

[01:01:28] The ways in which we often just cannot be there for one another. I mean I learned that when I was a teenager and my dad died. I had nobody. It was me and my mom. My family was not there for me. Nobody was there for me. So unfortunately very early in my life. I realized that people were going to not be there for me. And not give me the love and the care that I need. But people fail us. People disappoint us. People leave us.

[01:01:57] Reject us. Abandon us. Some of us go through that more than others. And unfortunately it's been a recurring experience in my life. I don't know why. I don't think that I'm somebody who is inherently unlovable. I think that we do live in a very cold world. I think that people are careless with each other. And unfeeling toward each other.

[01:02:26] And I think that we're always aching for a tenderness that we cannot find. I would say since I've become a caregiver. Because I don't have a partner. I don't have really a support system in real life. And when you're taking care of another person. Your own needs no longer matter. Like you have to put somebody else's needs above yours.

[01:02:53] And it becomes very hard for you to take care of yourself. And to make sure that your needs are met. And when you're alone. It makes it even harder. And I find that since I've been taking care of my mom. Like I won't love even more. Like I want somebody who loves me. Who cares about me. I want to be held. I want tenderness. I want softness.

[01:03:21] I want to be a priority to somebody. And I'm not. You know I'm just alone. I'm just alone every day. Trying to survive. It's so hard. It's so hard to be alone. And there's nobody there to prioritize you. There's nobody to put you first. There's nobody to care for you. It's really hard to live without it. It's very painful to live without tenderness. I think we need it.

[01:03:48] We need it even more in a cold world. I've tried. You know I've tried to connect many times. It just hasn't worked out for me. I often wonder. And it's taken a toll on me. Like it's. I always wanted to be a person who was soft hearted. Like I wanted to keep my heart open. I'm so lovey-dovey. Like I'm a cancer. I'm not huge into astrology. But everything about cancers fits me.

[01:04:17] Like I love supporting people. I love being there for people. I'm just so lovey-dovey you know. But I don't always get that in return obviously. Like I want to give. I want to love. But we live in a world where that's not always possible or safe. You know to give so much of yourself to people who can't reciprocate it. Or can't appreciate it. And so I struggle at times to keep my heart open.

[01:04:47] To keep myself from becoming hard. To keep myself from becoming cold. I don't want to be cold. I don't want to be distant. I don't want to be cynical. I don't want to be detached. Or bitter. Or angry. Or resentful. I don't want to be all those things. And sometimes I feel myself becoming somebody that I don't want to be. Because of the ways that I've been treated.

[01:05:15] The ways that I've been hurt and abandoned and wounded. And I wonder with Maria and Karen. If there was a time when they were more like Agnes. When they were softer. And they were more loving. And then as we see with Karen. She's in a very loveless marriage. And with Maria. She's in love with a man like a doctor. I wonder what made these women so cold.

[01:05:44] I wonder what made them into the women that they've become. Because we go through things that change us forever. And not always for the best. And I am not who I was before 2020. You know that version of me is gone. She is preserved in these podcast episodes that I did. But who I am today is different from her. And I feel like at times I've lost her.

[01:06:14] Because of things that I've been through. And ways that people have treated me that felt unthinkable at one time. And you don't understand it. You don't understand why. And you can't go back. You can't go back to who you were. I'll never be able to go back to who I was before all this happened with my mom. That version of me is gone.

[01:06:39] And the older episodes of this podcast are almost like they kind of are little reminders I guess. Or like a memorial to that version of me. I think I was once. I think I once had more dreams. Or I had more hope. Or I was maybe. I feel like I've lost a lot in the process. And I'm trying not to lose everything.

[01:07:06] I'm trying not to lose all of that softness. And that tender heartedness. I'm trying not to turn into somebody that I don't want to be. But I struggle. It's hard to live without the love that we desperately need. And it does something to you after a while. There's something so moving about Agnes and Anna. And there's this scene one night where Agnes calls out for Anna.

[01:07:34] And she wants them to be close. Anna goes to Agnes. And she offers her breasts. And she kisses her. And it's like Agnes is her child. And Anna is the mother. There's something so moving about that scene. I find the nudity in this film is very interesting. Because I don't really see it as sexual. Or even erotic.

[01:08:02] And I don't know how others view the film. But I don't see it that way at all. Even though there's this nudity. Even though she gets the breast out. And she's kissing her. To me it just feels like love. You know? It just feels like when Anna and Agnes are together. When they're in bed together. In that scene. And then one of the final scenes. At the very end. When Agnes has died. It's just love.

[01:08:30] Like to me it's unconditional love. It is the love that your mother gives you. The kissing and the breast. The breast is more about the nourishment and life. She's trying to give Agnes life. And mercy. And grace. And comfort. And solace. It is a woman comforting another woman. A woman saving another woman.

[01:08:58] It is such a scene of love and tenderness. It is a way to be there for Agnes in her death throes. In her agony. You know? Agnes is alone in that red room. And maybe I guess one day we will all be alone in a red room. You know? I mean in a way you could think about it as like maybe a metaphor for death. Or something like that.

[01:09:23] I think Bergman has this quote where he said he saw the soul as being red. Like the redness was connected to the interior of the soul. But she's alone in that room. And that's also why the film reminds me a bit of the silence. Because in the silence Ingrid Tulin is also a woman in pain. A woman suffering. And she's often alone in her bedroom. Separate from the world. Agnes is cut off from the world.

[01:09:53] And the only person who goes to her and holds her and touches her. And makes her feel human and alive is Anna. The scenes of Agnes's pain. The shrieking and the screaming. And I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen anything like it. It's... I don't know how Harriet Anderson did it. I don't know.

[01:10:21] But like you feel... You feel like you're watching this woman die. You can feel viscerally. It's such a visceral film in that way. You feel the pain in her body. It's terrifying. I mean it makes you tremble. It almost makes you tremble as you are watching it. I mean her gasping. Her air. She's just gasping. It's the death rattle.

[01:10:48] It is so brutal to watch Agnes in that pain. And to listen to her gasp for a breath at times. And then the screaming and the moaning. Because overnight is when she has... She's gasping for air. And it seems like she's going to be okay. And then the next morning is when the agony just overwhelms her. And she just... She's gone. And it's over.

[01:11:17] The film intersperses Agnes's dying with some insight into the sisters. We see Karen's life in a flashback. There's the scene of Karen doing the self-mutilation. Which is a very interesting counterpoint to Agnes. Because Agnes is in a pain that she doesn't choose. That she's not causing.

[01:11:43] And then Karen purposely mutilates herself. And cuts her genitals with glass. Almost as a way to show her husband. It's very frightening what she does. She's in so much pain that she mutilates herself. I feel like none of these women can find love. None of them can find the love that they need.

[01:12:09] And maybe Agnes is the only one who does get love at the end. She gets the love of Anna. She gets that love maybe that she was aching for from her mother. She gets it from Anna. And death. In the last moments of her life. She gets that comfort and solace and that unconditional love from Anna. There's a moment when Karen and Maria seem to reconcile.

[01:12:37] It kind of unravels by the end of the film. But it also says a lot about Karen in particular. And how she abhors contact. And she doesn't want to be touched by Maria. Karen is someone who's very... She's shut off. And she's severed from life. And it's just so interesting because Agnes... Even though Agnes is dying...

[01:13:06] Agnes seems more alive than somebody like Karen. I think Karen is almost like the walking dead. She's someone who is sleepwalking through her life. She cannot feel. She does not want to be touched. She doesn't want to get attached or make contact with Maria. She can't open up. She's closed off. And I think it's because she's lived with such a coldness for so long.

[01:13:36] Because it is unbearable to be touched. When for so long you've been starved for touch. It's safer to stay inside your walls. Than to take the risk of stepping out of them. It seems like the wall temporarily breaks. The sisters hug and talk. But then by the end of the film it feels like all of that's over. You know? Now that Agnes is dead... They're going to go back to their lives.

[01:14:05] And just sort of pretend like nothing happened. And they have been protected from Agnes. And her suffering in a way. I mean they're in the house. They're there. But they're not as hands-on with it. The way that Anna is. They don't have to confront it in the same way. And they're not really changed by it. The thing is, is like... Yeah, it's really hard to be a caregiver. And to go through everything that I've been through.

[01:14:35] But wouldn't it be more disturbing if I were not changed by it? If I were not affected by it? I think when you witness suffering. And that can be in many different contexts. That can mean genocide. That can mean Gaza. That can mean your mother in pain. It can mean people suffering from a natural disaster. When we witness suffering, we should be changed by it. We should be haunted by it.

[01:15:04] The fact that Karen and Maria witness Agnes' suffering and do not seem to be shaken by it. Do not seem to be transformed by it. Is more disturbing. And instead of showing love to Agnes, they reject her. They turn away from her. They abandon her in her moment when she needs them. When she needs them most. Because they cannot feel.

[01:15:34] I'm terrified by people who can't feel. I've known people like that. People who just sort of wear this mask. And they have one emotion. They tend to be like these very chipper, toxic, positivity people. Or they have one emotion. I feel deeply. I've said this, you know, to other people. Like, I feel deeply. I live deeply. I think deeply. I'm not ashamed of that.

[01:16:04] It's not easy. But I can't turn away from suffering. I guess that's the meaning that I've created from my experiences. From losing my father. From witnessing his suffering. And now witnessing my mother's suffering. Is that I don't turn away from it. I'm not. I'm someone who can handle intense emotions. I'm like that in my friendships. I'm never the friend who's like, don't tell me what you're going through.

[01:16:33] Don't tell me what you really feel. I want people to be honest and authentic about what they feel. And people can talk about all the facets of their lives with me. You don't have to hide anything. You don't have to pretend like everything's great when it's not. I'm not that person. Like, I am. Oh, I hate the term trauma dumping. At times, there's a legitimate time to say it. I don't like therapy speak in general.

[01:17:00] But I don't like when somebody just opening up about their lives. Or sharing difficult emotions. I don't like when that's labeled trauma dumping. Yes, there are people who will unload all of their issues on you and then never reciprocate the support. Of course. I'm not saying that doesn't happen.

[01:17:21] But anytime you share about vulnerable things or you're having a difficult time and you open up to somebody about that, that should not be labeled trauma dumping. It is okay to talk about all facets of the human experience here. We should be affected and changed by witnessing suffering. I truly believe that. And the fact that Karen and Maria are not is very disturbing to me.

[01:17:49] They just go on a... Like, after Agnes is dead, it's like, well, bye. Anna's gonna have to find another job. They're gonna leave the house and it's all over. And there's very little feeling there. I mean, we don't know what they feel deep down. I often feel like people like that, they have shut off their emotions. It's almost like a faucet. And they have managed to just shut it off. And I'm not that person. That's why I have this podcast.

[01:18:18] If I didn't feel anything, then I couldn't talk about films the way that I do. I... And the thing is, is that this is not just limited to films. I am the same way about the books I read. I'm the same way about the music that I listen to. That I want to enter into the work of art. And I want to be inside the mystery and the feelings of it. Like, that's just who I am.

[01:18:47] And I don't know if I would be like this if I had not gone through some of what I went through. You know, when my father died and they told me that he was dead, I knew in that moment so much about life. It separated me from people. Because I felt something that a lot of people my age at 16 had not felt and never would feel. I felt how fragile life is. How temporary we are.

[01:19:16] And I knew in that moment I would never be the same. I knew life was a very serious and a very precious thing that can be lost at any moment. And I felt the sacredness of life and of love. And the intensity of what I felt in that moment has never diminished. And has never left me. Even 20 years later. Almost 20 years later. I knew that it separated me.

[01:19:44] But when we witness somebody suffering. Or when we go through something painful. It should change us. And it doesn't change these women because they're dead inside. And there is such a cost to being dead inside. And we should always resist being dead inside. It is no way to live. Agnes is not dead inside. Agnes wants to live. That's also what separates her from her sisters. She's fighting to live.

[01:20:11] And maybe there's more life in her dead body than there is in the living bodies of Maria and Karen. Because they are cut off from themselves. And I think Anna is able to give that tenderness and love. Precisely because she has lost her daughter. Because she went through what I went through losing my dad. And maybe losing my dad is what allows me to give love and care now to my mother. Because I have witnessed. I witnessed that suffering.

[01:20:41] And I was changed by it. And it made me more empathetic. It made me more compassionate. It made me more connected to love, perhaps. You know, when Agnes is dead and her body is lying there in the bed, cold, decaying, Maria and Karen are terrified of her. And I think we always are terrified of the dead, no matter how much we loved them.

[01:21:05] Because of what I said earlier, they remind us of our ultimate, inescapable destination. And so Karen and Maria abandon Agnes and they reject her. Almost because they're rejecting their own death. They can't accept their own death. They won't stay with her. But Anna goes to her and stays with her. And so Anna lies in bed. This, I want to finish up my discussion of this film with this image from the film. It is searing.

[01:21:35] It is part of me. It's part of my soul. I will never get over this scene at the end after Agnes has died. And Anna goes and lies in bed with her. Agnes is curled in a fetal position. Anna's breast is out. Agnes is lying there in a fetal position in bed with her. And it's one of the most haunting scenes ever put on the screen. One of the greatest. This image itself is imprinted on my cells.

[01:22:05] That's what it feels like. Maybe we always fail the dead and we turn away from them in horror like Maria and Karen. Many people do this. It's actually very human. I don't mean to be judgmental. It is scary. It is terrifying when death happens, right? We're only human and we are flawed and we are imperfect. They can't handle it. They don't have the capacity to handle it.

[01:22:33] I said something similar in my episode about Autumn Sonata with love. There are people who don't have the capacity to love us. It does not mean that we don't deserve love. It does not mean that we are unlovable. It means that that parent or that friend or that sibling, some people don't have the ability. They don't know how to love. Count yourself lucky if you know how to love.

[01:23:02] Because I think there are a lot of people who don't know how or they have not learned. And I wonder sometimes if like my father's death connected me to the ability to love. It's like when you connect to your mortality, when you connect to the fact that you will die, that the people you love will die, that we are fragile, that we are vulnerable, that we are small, that we are sort of unbearably fragile and temporary.

[01:23:31] We are unbearably temporary in these bodies. To me, that generates love because it's like this is momentary and this is fleeting and this is precious and we're like we are a flicker in the universe. Why would we not want to love each other? Why would we not want to care about each other? I felt it in that moment when he died. I felt it next to his dead body.

[01:23:59] I remember standing there and there was this voice in my head that said, there is no God. I said like something in my head was like no God is here. It was a godless moment but love was there. And maybe love filled the void. Maybe love is the only thing that can fill the void. And that is what this image is about for me. It's about not running from the dead but standing there by their side and touching them and loving them. And that's what I did at 16.

[01:24:27] So maybe I was like Anna in that way too. I was there. And to be connected to love and to loving the people in your life. Certain people cannot touch the dead but certain people do touch the dead. Certain people do not turn away from the dead. I mean I think of the figure of Persephone who goes to the underworld.

[01:24:50] And a lot of people don't know that there was an original pre-Hellenic version of the Persephone myth. It's the version before the more popular and well-known Greek version. And in this pre-Hellenic version, she chooses to descend to the underworld. I've always loved this. She voluntarily goes to the underworld. She's not kidnapped. She's not raped. She actually asserts her agency.

[01:25:18] She hears the dead crying out and she wants to help them transition from life to death. And I see Anna in this way perhaps. She can be present with death. She has lost her daughter. And she uses, maybe she uses that experience to comfort Anna. To comfort Agnes I mean. Losing her daughter actually forces her to live in two worlds. That of the living and that of the dead. She's at home in both.

[01:25:46] And not everybody's like that. And so what Anna does, I feel, in that moment at the end with Agnes' dead body, is that it's an act of unconditional love. It is like the ultimate image of unconditional love and care. It is unbearably tender, that image. It is so important to me. I'm even struggling to articulate everything that I feel about it. But that is the truth. And that is how I feel about it.

[01:26:15] And the film ends with Anna reading a passage from Agnes' diary about a time of wholeness for her. When she's with her sisters and Anna. And they're walking on the grounds of the estate in Autumn. And Agnes is feeling good after so much suffering. It's a time years ago when there was sort of a break in her illness. She hadn't been out much. And she is walking around with her sisters.

[01:26:43] And they have their parasols. And she writes, All my pain was gone. The people I'm most fond of were with me. This really is happiness. And I think what the message is for me is a message of love. It's not just the love that Agnes finally finds at the end of her life with Anna. Seeing the sisters reunited that way, Bergman leaves us with that image.

[01:27:10] And he leaves us with the image of togetherness and of love. That in that moment, Agnes feels a sense of love for her sisters, for Anna, and for life. A love for life. And the screen shows the phrase, And so the cries and whispers die away. That's what he leaves us with. It's like, yes, this is a devastating film.

[01:27:36] It is about death and illness and isolation and coldness and the inability for people to love one another. These are themes woven throughout his filmography. And they're very resonant. But I also think it's a film about love. About the necessity of love. Unconditional love. Love that comes maybe from a sacrifice. Anna. Anna.

[01:28:03] It's not easy for Anna to sit with that dead body. But she does that. And she gives love to Agnes. That's the way I view it. It's just... I don't know. This film made me realize a lot of things while I was talking about it in this episode. And I hope that it was of value to other people to listen to it. As difficult as it was to talk about. But this film does console me.

[01:28:33] This film does bring me a sense of comfort. Because of that ultimate message about love. And caring for one another. Agnes is hurting. Agnes is suffering. And she needs care. She doesn't need coldness. She needs care. And we have to care about each other. We have to love each other. We need more of that. We really do. I'm trying to live from a place of love. I'm trying to hold on to the love that I do have.

[01:29:02] And give that love each day as well. And I think that's all we can do. I appreciate anybody who listened to this full episode. Thank you so much. Until next time. Keep watching great films.