A brooding tale set in 14th century Sweden, based on an old ballad and examining the conflict between Christianity and Paganism. A sombre powerful fable of peasant parents whose daughter is brutally raped and murdered by swineherds after her half sister invoked a pagan curse. By a bizarre twist of fate the murderers ask for shelter from the parents who exact a chilling revenge. Luminous, haunting black-and-white photography.
"Jungfrukällan" (original Swedish title) is based on a medieval fable about a girl who is raped and murdered by three herdsmen in the wilderness. Now this might sound ... more >
"Jungfrukällan" (original Swedish title) is based on a medieval fable about a girl who is raped and murdered by three herdsmen in the wilderness. Now this might sound like a B-grade thriller or even a disused porno-with-a-plot but be very surprised because what you get is actually a brilliantly woven composition of revenge, faith, purity, reconciliation, piety, evil, guilt, sin and madness.
In 14th century Sweden, a beautiful virgin daughter sets out to bring candles to the church only to be brutally raped and murdered by three goat-herders in the woods after her jealous half-sister partakes in an evil pagan spell. In a maze of poetic justice, the bandit trio unknowingly ends up seeking shelter from the parents and relatives of the very girl they wronged. Upon discovery of their heinous crime when they offered up the dead girl's garments for sale, the events that follow would disturb even the most desensitised movie-goer, as everyone in the tale struggles to come to terms with what must be done.
As for the cast, to single out any one actor would be to do injustice to the rest. As ever, Bergman uses actors with faces that can hold the audience in those prolonged close-up shots to convey intensity of emotion. A young Max von Sydow plays the enraged father to perfection with all the poise of calculated madness. Birgitta Petterson is charming as the virginal victim but I find true precision in the acting of the dark-haired sister Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom), who portrayed the burdensome guilt of sin very, very emphatically in just one single scene. The youngest boy from the criminal trio (Ove Porath) deserves special mention as well with such an unbelievably innocent countenance to him.
There is one very memorable line from this film which I cannot resist mentioning -when an old man in the stable was talking to the boy, tormenting him with psychological terror -"See the smoke trembling under the roof as if with fright? Yet when it gets out in the air, it has the whole sky to swirl about in. But it doesn't know that, so it huddles and trembles in the soot under the roof. It's the same with people. They quiver like a leaf in the storm, afraid of what they know and what they don't know." You can bet the boy was scared out of his wits as he trembled with guilt.
As ever with Tartan Region 0 Bergman DVDs, we get some sort of lengthy letter or production note from the great man himself, detailing the significance of the movie to himself. The rest of the stuff like film stills and other Bergman trailers are only peripheral to the average viewer. What I did find out from the extras on this DVD though, is that Bergman was angry and dismissive at his own work in "The Virgin Spring" and rubbished it as a cheap imitation of Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon". It is said that the matter was finally put to rest when on his 80th birthday, the Japanese virtuoso himself congratulated Bergman for his work in The Virgin Spring and said that he enjoyed it very much.
Well I just want to end by saying that this is a truly moving film that can unmask the soul. The question is only whether you're ready and also whether you're patient enough. I recommend this to anybody who has not been initiated to the sublime works of Ingmar Bergman. Not only is this one of his simpler films but one of his most powerful as well, so this would be a good place to start. To borrow the line again, are you one of those people who quiver like a leaf in the storm, afraid of what you know and what you don't know?
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Astonishingly powerful depiction of violent medieval life; in fact, THE VIRGIN SPRING, with its brutal and unflinching tale of rape and revenge, directly inspired such... more >
Astonishingly powerful depiction of violent medieval life; in fact, THE VIRGIN SPRING, with its brutal and unflinching tale of rape and revenge, directly inspired such horror movies as Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left < less
