"Cries and Whispers" (1972) and Cutting to Red

Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers features a unique stylistic choice. Every time the films chooses to fade out, rather than fading to black, it fades to a jarring red. This is the type of stylistic decision that purposely draws attention to itself and begs to be questioned. Red is a prominent color throughout the film. Bergman emphasizes red, black and white in the mis-en-scene, but he especially makes red stand out. It's the color of curtains, bedspreads, chairs and furniture, and wallpaper. The three distant sisters, Karin, Marina and Agnes, are surrounded by the color red. It hangs over them like an inescapable cloud.

We learn that the siblings have never been very close. When Agnes is close to a premature death from cancer, the three are forced to re-evaluate their history and their memories. The red at once seems to represent the still bleeding wounds of the past, never fully healed or sealed up. In the film, the past isn't something that happened to people but is still happening to them. If moments faded to black, it would feel as if we were closing the book on that chapter of the story. But with the fade to red, it's as if the moment is accented, more greatly asserted; it causes each moment to bleed into the next; the feeling and sentiment of the previous scene lingers into the following.

The red is not just a figurative suggestion of blood but a literal one as well. It emphasizes the blood ties between the siblings. They may be detached but they don't necessarily want to be. They just don't know how not to be. They were kept from forming stronger bonds by their mother who played favorites with them. Yet even in the face of one of their deaths, they can't seem to fix things. "I hate you," Karin informs Marina with all the intent that it should hurt her. They don't seem to know how to not hurt one another. Marina is psychoanalyzed by her doctor lover at one point and he notes how she is selfish, but he might as well be speaking for all of them. It's not until the end of her life that Agnes comes to forgive her sisters and let go of the past.

Agnes has greater anxieties though than those just in the distant past. She's looking forward to the judgement of God. Cries and Whispers is a highly spiritual film concerned with the ever-watchful eye of God. Agnes, with the clarity of death at hand, sees the pettiness of conflict between her and her sister as meaningless and destructive. At times the red feels like its the specter of God here on Earth, casting judgement upon the sisters and their actions.    

Even after Karin and Marina talk things out and appear to reconcile their differences, when Karin asks Marina if they'll stay true to the promises they made, Marina remains hesitant. She says "yes", but the way she says it belies the truth that nothing has actually changed. They can't escape the past or their self-centered behavior. It runs as hot as their bitter blood.