The Silence

Also known as Silence

1963 Ingmar Bergman film

Film · TMDB

7.5

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

Released: 1963-09-2395 minDir: Ingmar BergmanDrama, Romance

▶ Watch trailerStream on: Criterion Channel

Cast

Ingrid Thulin as Ester
Gunnel Lindblom as Anna
Birger Malmsten as Bartender
Håkan Jahnberg as Hotel Steward
Jörgen Lindström as Johan
Kotti Chave as Officer in the Train Compartment

~15 min read

Article

The Silence (Swedish: Tystnaden) is a 1963 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom. The plot focuses on two sisters, the younger a sensuous woman with a young son, the elder more intellectually oriented and seriously ill, and their tense relationship as they travel toward home through a fictional Central European country on the brink of war.

The film is the third in a series of thematically related films, following Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Winter Light (1963), which is sometimes considered a trilogy. In addition to interpretations of spiritual issues, The Silence is sometimes interpreted as presenting its two sister characters as two sides of a single woman, one representing the physical and the other language. Bergman was inspired by his travels around Europe after World War II.