newcritics

(Cross-posted at The Sawpit.)

Since the recent death of Swedish director Igmar Bergman, I’ve been thinking of his many films I’ve seen over the years. The one that still haunts me today is his 1961 Academy Award winner, The Virgin Spring. I first saw it twelve years ago, shortly after being laid off from my print shop assistant job. One day I decided to borrow a few movies from the local library. In my melancholy state, I was naturally drawn to the small foreign film section. Later that night, I was transported to a much simpler time where the young virgin daughter of a devout Christian farmer rides horseback for miles to bring candles to the nearest church. I didn’t know what to make of the film at first, but it made me forget my unemployment woes for a little while.

The only other Bergman film I’d seen at the time was The Seventh Seal, but it didn’t affect me the way this story had. I realize now that Bergman was not just re-telling a 14th-century Swedish legend, he was presenting universal archetypal symbols which transcend the simple Christian allegory of redemption. I found that C.J. Jung’s use of the shadow to represent repressed aspects of all the darker and neglected parts of our lives was very useful to understanding this film. The shadow is not all evil, for it can contain sound instinctive reactions also, which is why we must always be on guard against it.

Karin’s dark haired, pregnant sister, Ingeri, prays to the Norse god, Odin. Because Ingeri hates Karin for being the favorite daughter, she slips a toad into her bread. One might say that the Ingeri character is the shadow cast by Karin’s virgin light. Ingeri follows her sister and watches her being raped and murdered by two herdsmen with whom she had innocently shared her lunch. Ironically, the herdsman and the child they are traveling with end up at Herr Töre’s farmhouse where they ask to be put up for the night. When they try to sell Karin’s clothes to the mother, they realize that the herdsmen had murdered her. Herr Töre waits until his guests fall asleep, then kills them both, along with the child. That morning the family sets out to find Karin’s body. Falling to his knees, Herr Töre vows to God that he will construct a church on that same ground. As he and his wife lift up her body water begins to spout from the grassy earth where her head had laid. The dark sister Ingeri is suddenly converted to Christianity, as she desires to purify herself with the water.

Herdsman, or shepherds, are always viewed as protectors. Yet in this story, the good shepherds are transformed into wolves who slaughter an innocent lamb. And the rage which drives the father is the shadow side of his normally peaceful and devout Christian nature. His lust for revenge extends even to the child companion of the herdsmen, although his own holy book states that “it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” He fell victim to his own passions, but only by confronting the dark shadow cast by his soul, can he ever hope to find harmony again.

The water which springs from the ground can be interpreted as a sign of divine approval of Herr Töre’s desire to build a church in memory of his daughter’s death. Almost all religious traditions view the idea of primordial water as the source of all life, a vehicle of purification and rebirth. Water is considered the Great Mother, and is connected with the feminine principle, the universal womb, the prima materia. The divine water and the future cathedral are attempts to balance the evil that has overwhelmed the good. It does not matter whether the evil Herr Töre commits is a reaction to a greater evil, his shadow must be confronted. This spiritual transformation is the most important theme of the film.

Bergman felt that the idea of therapeutic resolution was artistically uninteresting. But my impression is different. There is something so utterly primal and mysterious about the ending of the film that it stayed with me for years. I don’t agree with Bergman in that his motifs got “all tangled up” in this film because he was “psychologizing” the script. I doubt that he could have escaped those archetypes for they manifest themselves from the deep waters of our unconscious. We need to delve deep into our darker side so that we may know what we are capable of. Once we confront the shadow-figure in our soul, we are better able to find our true light. To see ourselves from both sides is to become a much wiser person.