While not one of his most celebrated works, I would rank this in the top tier of Bergman's oeuvre. Perhaps it is somewhat overlooked because it is an acharacteristic film from this celebrated artist. This is the closest the director ever came to making an action film, or at least an action-driven movie, in which the lead characters' struggle to physically survive is the primary focus.
This might mark the high-water mark of Sven Nykvist's career as a cinematographer. It might sound strange, but the most memorable images here were, for me, his studies of blank walls off which the exhaustion and terror of the characters seemed to reflect. I have to think this film in particular influenced the look of Bela Tarr's black and white films from Damnation on. The hand held shots are also made all the more impressive by the fact that some of them are choreographed around pyrotechnics that, I would imagine, were not easily repeatable.
With the coldness with which the filmmakers abandon their characters to sinister forces, I wondered if Shame wasn't an inspiration for the heartless world of Michael Hanake. The particularly cruel, though also perhaps most human, final scenes are especially resonant in our contemporary moment in history, especially in relation to the NATO created humanitarian disaster in Libya.
This might mark the high-water mark of Sven Nykvist's career as a cinematographer. It might sound strange, but the most memorable images here were, for me, his studies of blank walls off which the exhaustion and terror of the characters seemed to reflect. I have to think this film in particular influenced the look of Bela Tarr's black and white films from Damnation on. The hand held shots are also made all the more impressive by the fact that some of them are choreographed around pyrotechnics that, I would imagine, were not easily repeatable.
With the coldness with which the filmmakers abandon their characters to sinister forces, I wondered if Shame wasn't an inspiration for the heartless world of Michael Hanake. The particularly cruel, though also perhaps most human, final scenes are especially resonant in our contemporary moment in history, especially in relation to the NATO created humanitarian disaster in Libya.