Winter Light - Criterion Collection - Region 1 DVD

Following Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light reunites Gunnar Björnstrand, this time playing a pastor suffering a crisis of faith while ministering to a shrinking congregation, and Max Von Sydow as a parishioner lost to acute anxiety over the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. Neither man can help or heal the other, or even inspire renewed confidence in practiced rituals and older, more certain views of the world. Set on a chilly, Sunday afternoon, Winter Light's heavy stillness, lack of music, preference for intense close-ups and distancing long shots, and barren setting all lead us inescapably into the core of a profound silence, an echo chamber in which love can't grow and religion rings hollow. The trilogy concludes with The Silence. --Tom Keogh