The Virgin Spring

"The Lord is more merciful than you think"

After making a colossal inernational splash with The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman revisited the middle ages once again to tell a much more focused story in The Virgin Spring. Whilst the physical parameters of the story are lot smaller, the themes it deals with are no less complex or wide-reaching, with the director wading once more into the trouble arena of faith and punishment on Earth. In this case he crafts what could be seen as the first rape-vigilantism film (though it couldn't be more tonally different in comparison to Straw Dogs or Death Wish), and asks the question: why does God allow such horrible deeds to be committed? We don't neccessarily get a direct answer to that question, but Bergman examines the issues surrounding it with typical maturity and stone-faced clarity.

Karin (Birgitta Pettersson) is the doted-upon daughter of Tore (Max Von Sydow) and Mareta (Birgitta Valberg), a well-off Christian couple living in the Swedish forest. As a virgin, Karin is called upon to take the virgin candles to mass, and so she leaves on horseback with the household's servant, Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom). In the forest the two become seperated, and Karin meets up with some wandering goatherders. The goatherders are men without morals, and after sitting to share the spoilt girl's food they rape and kill her. Later that day, the goatherders come to Tore and Mareta's and ask for shelter. Being good Christians, the couple take the men in, unaware that their daughter has just been killed by them.

I probably gave away a bit too much of the plot just now, but predictability isn't really all that important in this film... the events are more or less inevitable, it's the themes and execution that make it so engaging. There is a strict contrast between Sweden's old gods (in particular, Odin) and the new religion (Christianity)... Ingeri is seen appealing to Odin at the film's beginning, a practice illustrated as a kind of paganism akin to devil-worship. When the servant wanders away from Karin in the forest (sealing the younger girl's fate), she meets a sinister one-eyed man who talks of human sacrifice. This old man contributes to a series of bad omens leading up to Karin's grisly end, such as her mother's unsettling nightmare and a frog that emerges from a loaf of bread. A lot of this plays into an all-pervading fear of the Devil and the seducing nature of evil... Ingeri isn't directly responsible for Karin's rape (Bergman isn't that kind of filmmaker) but her connection to it throws up certain questions that are open to interpretation. One possible interpretation would be that the virginal and naive Karin (who represents the purity and innocence of Christianity) may have been ill-equipped to deal with the evils of the world, whereas Ingeri's adherence to the tough Paganistic gods makes her all too aware of the possibility of evil (to the extent that she knows when to run away, whereas Karin doesn't).

The heavy religious themes also give way to themes of jealousy, guilt and judgment. There are comparisons made between human life under God to the lives of small, defenceless animals under humans - the clearest of these being when the woman at the beginning of the film almost steps on some baby chickens. It obliquely suggests that God may not have the awareness required to intervene in the small lives of humans. The medieval setting is no accident either, it's a time when religion was a bigger part of everyday life, a creative decision that renders the themes immediate and relevant.

There's a memorable part in the film where Tore is sitting in his chair, contemplating the three goatherders before him after realising what they've done. A knife sticks out of the table in front of him and he looks out over the room as judge, jury and excecutioner. It's a powerful image, and Von Sydow is perfectly intense at this moment. The point where he boils over and erupts into violence is starkly staged and framed by Bergman, who uses fire in the foreground to symbolise Tore's condemnation to hell. You might expect the film to end around this point, but Bergman is even more interested in what happens next, and he opens up the story with a slightly ambiguous ending that encompasses man's struggle to understand God and the relationship between tragedy, vengeance and supplication. Bergman later said that he regretted the obvious piece of imagery that memorably closes the film, but as one of the few clear allusions in The Virgin Spring I think it's great way to end what is essentially quite a morally complex story.

DIRECTOR: Ingmar Bergman
WRITER/SOURCE: Ulla Isaksson, based on a medieval ballad.
KEY ACTORS: Max Von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom, Birgetta Pettersson, Axel Duberg, Tor Isedal

RELATED TEXTS
- Tore's Daughters in Vange, the 13th century Swedish ballad on which the film is based. See also, The Three Dead Kings, a 15th century English poem that also served as inspiration.
- The Last House on the Left, Wes Craven's directorial debut, is pretty much a low budget horror remake of The Virgin Spring.
- Bergman previously examined faith in the middle ages in The Seventh Seal.
- Rashomon is an even earlier film that deals with rape in the middle ages.
- Films where a man seeks revenge for the rape of a woman/girl he loves: Death Wish, Straw Dogs, The Horseman, Law Abiding Citizen and Seeking Justice.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Foreign Language Film. Also nominated for Best Costume Design.
Cannes Film Festival - 'won' a Special Mention. Also nominated for the Palme d'Or.
Golden Globes - won the Samuel Goldwyn Award.