Shame (1968) User Reviews (73)

Bergman's only "sci-fi"

[hrkepler · 9/10 · 12 June 2018]

'Shame' as it is best known world wide, is probably most underrated Bergman movie at the moment. Or perhaps little seen is more correct term, as most people who have seen it consider 'Shame' to be among the Bergman's bests. And the film is too great for such unnoticed film.

Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow star as wife and husband getting caught in the horrors of war. Although the war is shown mostly without epic battle scenes, rather shown just by soldiers marching by and fighter jets flying over, the sound of imminent doom is in every frame. 'Shame' is wonderful character study and what war does to a peoples' psychology. Max von Sydow's Jan is intelligent, but somewhat cowardly man. Some can even call him weak, while Liv Ullmann's Eva is strong and independent woman, who really cares about her husband. The character descriptions seem simple at first - strong wife, weak husband - but there's much more hidden in these people. Although Jan is not your typical macho guy, his intelligence compensate lot of his cowardice. And Eva, although strong woman, is still in need of some support from her husband. While the war comes closer and closer we see their relationship starting to fall apart, and then getting stronger again, until they get right into the middle of war horrors, with both sides riding over their farm. They both grow cold and stay together just for habit. Jan becomes cruel and violent, while Eva becomes not exactly submissive, but rather distant.

Bergman has stated his dissatisfaction with the film in several occasions, and never considered it his best work, but 'Shame' is must see film.

PASSING ON IGNORANCE

[Norwegianheretic · 9/10 · 7 December 2002]

When Liv Ullman's character says, "I feel like I'm in someone else's dream and they're going to be ashamed when they wake up," she is referring not only to being an unwilling player in society's war games, she is referring to being an ignorant participant in life itself. At the film's end, when she says that she had a dream that she had a child and she was trying to take care of it, but she forgot something else, the implication is that she has forgotten what she has learned in the war she's just survived, that like her own mother before her, she will be unable to pass on any vital lessons to her own child. And, therefore, the cycle of the shame of ignorance will continue...ad infinitum...

War, What is it Good For...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 5 February 2023]

It's anyone's guess how you would react, when the sky falls down and you're under an attack, with terror and torment knocking on the front door, once friends take up arms, aim their sights, waging war - experiences that should have been lost some years ago but seem to perpetuate more than ever these days.

Eva and Jan leave us under no illusion of how innocent people living ordinary lives the world over can change as they're drawn into the living nightmares of armed conflict. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman once again present us with characters from the imagination of Ingmar Bergman that exist in a world few of us would like to share, but the world of cinema lets us come close enough to get a feel.

A Relevance Unmatched

[purban · 10/10 · 28 June 2005]

I don't recall a film which so deftly shows the emotional destruction of war, as mirrored in one single marital relationship. The focus of the film is the union between Ullman and Von Sydow--the two are in every scene. Through the course of the film, they experience a role reversal--one has the strength of survival and the other is reduced to emotional escapism through dreams. Both will lose a measure of humanity, but one to a greater degree than the other. The characters and the viewer go through periods of fluctuation in regards to closeness--the camera pulls out and away, sound disappears, words are lost, only for the camera to return to painterly closeups of its facially expressive stars. The confusion and fluctuation may make this film hard for some viewers, but this is all purposeful under the master hand of Bergman. I think the use of a "fake" war makes the film timeless, as relevant today as ever before, and by focusing on the human relationship through war, makes the film relevant to everyone. The pair could be anyone. The film is not grounded in place or time, but rather in emotion. A unique and effective war film, unlike any other. Bergman's films are virtuosic in presenting human relationships--that he would bring this to a war film is masterful.

Beautiful and ugly

[futures-1 · 17 July 2005]

"Shame" ("Skammen") (Swedish, 1968): Definitely one of Ingmar Bergman's masterworks, with cinematography by Sven Nyquist (who did most of Bergman's, and some of Woody Allen's films). "Shame" is less symbolic than some of Bergman's works, and, an intense, psychological study of a married couple, Jan and Eva, (Max von Sydow & Liv Ullmann) who have their personal problems like anyone else, but suddenly find their otherwise quiet Swedish island life completely upset by a civil war. Faced with increasing losses and degradations, we watch them struggle not only against circumstances, but their own psyches. The number of "shames" depicted is huge. This story may have influenced Lina Wertmuller's film "Swept Away". Just a guess. "Shame" is an ULTIMATE in gorgeous b/w photography, and ugly psychological horror.

Bleak but essential

[neil-313 · 10/10 · 18 July 2005]

A gruelling watch, but one of Bergman's finest films. Interesting to compare this with The Hour of the Wolf, as both feature the same lead actors as artists (or an artist and his wife) who have taken sanctuary on an island. In the earlier film it's largely inner demons that lead to von Sydows disintegrating personality (at least that's how I read it) whereas here it's very much circumstances beyond his control.

Much has been written about the unsympathetic central characters, particularly von Sydow's. For me there are flashes of a good (if flawed) man early in the film, but one who copes badly with adversity. The flaws become all that is left as his humanity is gradually eroded by one horror after another.

I watched A Passion (Ullmann and von Sydow on their island again) soon after this, and was amazed to recognise many of the same locations. And then there's a dream sequence...

Impressive

[tonio_r2 · 9/10 · 28 January 2002]

I watched this movie on a big screen a few months ago. I didn't know what to expect precisely, and for the first ten minutes I feared I might not enjoy this film. It was beginning very slowly, in silence and almost banality, which was all the less exciting as the sound was quite bad and the subtitles sometimes impossible to read.

But I definitely do not regret to have gone on watching it. It is one of the most beautiful Bergman movies I've ever seen, at the same time human, ruthless and psychologically so convincing.

Seldom have I seen actors play so wonderfully, with such an intensity on their faces : Liv Ullman's interpretation is unforgettable and Sydow is excellent too.

There is always psychological violence in Bergman movies, and this one may be the most physically violent of them all. The strained relationships between the man and the woman evolve in parallel with the physical violence that is surrounding them...

Finally, this sober, violent and powerful film contains a surprisingly striking human depth. An excellent Bergman.

Incredible

[sgoldgaber · 10/10 · 28 January 2003]

Bergman's Skammen is one of the most realistic depictions of war ever set to film. This is not an action film by any means, though the pacing is faster and there is most action than in most any other Bergman movie. Nor is this a romanticisation of war or patriotism, unlike most war movies. In fact, the gritty realism and the deliberate ambiguity of the character's loyalties has a very contemporary feel.

Skammen is a darkly lit movie, that should be watched at night, so as to let it work it's magic. Many of the effects are conveyed indirectly, but so effectively that some scenes compete in intensity to a contemporary, insanely huge budget film like Saving Private Ryan. Of course, the action in Skammen is on a much smaller scale but it is impressive none-the-less.

While the film-making style feels contemporary, the setting of the film feels timeless and placeless. The war-torn countryside, and even the yet intact provincial hamlet could be anywhere, any time. And this film is not so much about specific historical events, with specific names and dates, but about universal human reactions to adversity and chaos.

The acting in Skammen, though typically impressive from Ullman and Sydow, is not of primary importance in this film, unlike most other Bergman movies. Through much of the film they are spectators, much as we are. Bergman has the war imposed on them, and through them on the audience, and their reaction is perhaps what any of our reactions might be.

Highly recommended. 10/10

shame

[TootlesT · 6/10 · 14 February 2005]

Ingmar Bergman's moderate attempts of displaying the psychological effects of war are depicted in Shame. Although he presents emotional and deep characters, Bergman's unique film is a bit hard to follow at times. The beginning moves slowly, which takes away from the intentional dramatic impact. However, I enjoyed the complex personalities of Jan and Eva, and anticipated how they would deal with the war and each other. Bergman's ending leaves the viewer uncertain and confused, but is also extremely symbolic of the couples' sentiments and intimacy.

I specifically noticed the remarkable camera angles Bergman used to illustrate his points. He often shows the back of Jan's head which suggests that his wife is the more dominant of the two. There are also intense close-ups and effective over the shoulder shots. Shame is an impressive film overall.

one of the great war films (for the art-house)

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 19 February 2006]

Shame is rather unique as a war film (or rather quite the anti-war film) in that it not only doesn't focus on the soldiers or politics involved (there is politics but not how you'd think it'd be shown), it deals with its two main subjects as the only two beings that can possibly be cared about at all in this brutal, decaying society they inhabit. Ingmar Bergman, in the midst of his prime, and following two other heavily psychological films, Persona and Hour of the Wolf, is far more interested in seeing what the effect of war has on usually civilized beings, that it brings out the worst in them, and also in a cathartic way is a reminder of what is truly crucial in living. His two key actors are frequent collaborators and friends Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman (as the Rosenbergs oddly enough), who are musicians living on a farm on an island (not too dissimilar from 'Wolf' when one thinks about it).

They see the tanks roll by, and a couple of old friends already getting worn down, but they try not to put it too much to heart; there's a sweet scene where the couple just talk, rather frankly but with heart (all one shot, as is repeated through the film is to perhaps create a sense of being provoked)...Then comes the trouble, including a fake film of propaganda made at gunpoint with the Rosenbergs, the psychological turmoil in being prisoners of war, and the terror involved with a 'friend' in the military (one of Gunnar Bjornstrand's most subtle works with Bergman). Needless to say this is not one of the easier films to go through in terms of Bergman's filmography, however for some it may be one of his more accessible works. His religious themes this time is kept very low key, even as the idea of keeping a sort of faith pervades the film's atmosphere. When there is war action it's shot in unconventional, quick ways (via great amigo Sven Nykvist).

And the deconstruction of the relationship between Jan and Eva is corresponded successfully with the backdrop of a chaotic kind of war-ground where the lines are never too surely drawn. In a way this film, shot right at the height of the worst times in Vietnam, is even more relevant for today; I couldn't help but see chilling, uncompromising coincidences between Iraq and elsewhere with some of Jan and Eva's scenes with the fighters, or those 'in charge'. The very last scene, by the way, is one of Bergman's very best, all around (acting, directing, lighting). It's not the kind of war picture (or, again, anti-war, I find little of the John Wayne spirit in this Svensk production) that I would recommend right off the bat to my friends all into Saving Private Ryan- it has a little more in kinship with Paths of Glory, looking at the effects of the hypocrisy of war. But in reality, like any of Bergman's "genre" films, it stands alone, however one that packs a wallop for the art-house crowd.

Minor Bergman work

[parkerbcn · 6/10 · 30 April 2021]

The second part of an unnamed trilogy about violence invading ordinary lives that Bergman directed in the 60s, with all three films shot on the island of Fårö and starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann. This one is kind of a bleak war film (Bergman style, of course), even when what we see is more the sidelines of the conflict and how they affect a country couple. Even when it has good moments, excellent performances (especially by Ullmann) and a good open conclusion, the film didn't click with me as much as other Bergman titles (he also wasn't very satisfied with it), probably because the writing seems poorer than normal.

The Process of Brutalization of a War

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 27 June 2009]

The apolitical musicians Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Jan Rosenberg (Max von Sydow) have been married for seven years and live in a small farm in a remote island to escape from a civil war in the continent. They provide lingenberry to a couple of costumers to raise some money and buy some supplies. They love each other and Eva is twenty years old and wants to have a baby but the reluctant Jan, who is a weak and sensitive man, does not want to have children. When the rebels arrive in the island, their peaceful and calm lives turn to hell, and they get in the middle of accusations from both sides. When Colonel Jacobi (Gunnar Björnstrand) stalks Eva, Jan changes his behavior and becomes a brutal man, and the love and affection they feel for each other change to hatred and indifference.

"Shame" is an antiwar movie by the master Ingmar Bergman focused by the eyes of a couple of artists that are apolitical and does not listen to the news, but when the war arrives to their lands, they have their love, friendship and affection destroyed by the senseless soldiers. Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow have top-notch performances as usual and I do not recall seeing the breast of Liv Ullmann in any other movie. The process of brutalization of the pacific and sensitive Jan Rosenberg by the war is impressive and the bleak open conclusion is pessimist and adequate to the dramatic story. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Vergonha" ("Shame")

Skammen

[smh19 · 6/10 · 14 February 2005]

This grim and dark story of war not only portrayed the effects of war one's country but also on one's self and soul. The film contained few characters which made the viewer focus and become only involved in the couple struggling through a time of war and devastation. At the beginning, the man is filled with remorse and grief when signs of the war appear in his town. The woman battles his anguish and takes control. Towards the end, one can see the effects war takes upon one's self as the husband has become brutally desperate to take charge and save himself. This fictitious war in Sweden is a fine example of the drive and determination a person needs to fight for their life.

Skammen - a bit disappointing

[kgq1 · 4/10 · 14 February 2005]

I felt that the movie Skammen, directed by Ingmar Bergman, was very dry. It shows the things people will do to survive during a war and the shame that comes out of these actions; however I feel that it was not complete or attention holding. He never fully got into the plot or deep into the character emotions or reasons behind their actions. The only thing that I found rather attention holding in the movie was the transformation of the two main characters, Jan and Eva. Many times during the movie was just the two main characters sitting around or doing their daily chores and not even having a conversation. I understand this was to show the reality of these people however I feel there are other ways to show reality and have it be entertaining. I think that Ingmar Bergman could have filmed this movie in a more riveting way.

A flawless simple film

[michelerealini · 6 February 2004]

It's difficult to choose a representative film from the entire Ingmar Bergman's filmography. Each film deserves a comment because it's like a piece of art in its own.

I chose "Skammen" because I saw it recently and because I think the message -although being a 1968 film- is still valid. The subject is quite simple: a couple is surprised by war, which changes forever the existence of the two people. We can discover their real feelings and their real values.

We can find shame in more levels.

First, husband's shame for not being able of giving a child to his woman. He's also an extremely coward man in the first half of the movie, he feels shame also for that.

Second, wife's shame for not being a mother -she feels frustrated. She's shameful also because she has betrayed her man with an important man of their country's army.

Third. They both feel shame because they pretend being friends of this man, who saves them from tortures and jail. (They're actually accused of being traitors, in expressing other political opinions.) As a compensation, that man come to their home whenever he wants and take advantage of his position for becoming a woman's lover. The husband lets things going like this, it's the price he pays for a kind of freedom...

Fourth. Shameful is of course war and life during it.

Bergman makes a flawless movie, he studies people as they are. Without big budgets and huge sets. A simple film, deep, superbly photographed in black and white.

An unforgettable film

[Galina_movie_fan · 9/10 · 7 January 2007]

This is one of the bleakest, the most harrowing of Bergman's films I've seen. I also think this is one of the most powerful films about the ugliness of war and what it does to the human souls.

The couple of musicians, who left a big city for a remote island and make a living as farmers, find themselves capable of unspeakable and shameful acts that would have ordinarily been impossible for them even imagine, as they struggle to survive horrible reality of war. They betray their souls, their friends and even each other in a desperate attempt to simply survive another day. Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow are brilliant as usual as lost, confused, and terrified couple that got caught in the midst of a civil war.

9.5/10

Forget "horror" films, this is truly terrifying.

[Ben_Cheshire · 10/10 · 13 May 2015]

In the first twenty minutes we grow to adjust to the rich normality of these lives, and then the bombs start falling. War changes everything. Beautifully photographed, acted and written obviously. This film is a triumph.

The proper aspect ratio, unlisted on IMDb at time of writing, is 1.33.1, and it is correct on DVD from Distinction Series from Region 4, though I can't speak for any other releases. The transfer is nice too for DVD. This ranks as one of the best Bergman films I've seen and one of the best war films I've seen. Can't recommend it highly enough.

10/10

Bergman at the Top of His Game

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 27 March 2015]

It took me a long time to get a copy of this film. I am glad I finally got to see it. I am by nature a happy person, but I still enjoy the masterful brush strokes of Ingmar Bergman. This is a top three for me. It is the story of a couple of concert musicians who live on a dull, bleak island and torment each other. It isn't that they do anything that dramatic; it's just that they seem to inject perpetual happiness into the landscape. Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow seem an odd match. He is a whiner with a propensity for inaction; she would like to have family and he avoids the topic. In his mind, it's as if he is thinking, "Wait long enough and this will go away." He is lazy and not very well. There is a kind of civil war going on (we never know where or why it is being fought) and Jan (Van Sydow) is convinced that because of their innocuous presence, they will be left alone. Eventually, they are tossed in the maelstrom. At one point it seems as though they will die but the powers that be (and they are hard to figure out) send them back to their home. Once again, there is a sense of safety. Out of the blue, a colonel who helped get them back to "safety" comes to call. He is in trouble, and yet it is hard to know why, other than those he worked for see him as traitorous. He offers every cent (kroner) he has to be mothered by the young woman. He ends up having sex with her and Jan is beside himself. He takes the money and puts it in a pocket. When the colonel needs it back to buy his way out of this mess, Jan acts as though he doesn't have it. Jan is given the task of executing the colonel. What happens from this point on is so heavy and bleak. As is always the case with Bergman and Sven Nyquist, the images are fraught with emotion and symbolist. A film worth watching numerous times. A real trip to Hades.

Here is Swedish Arthouse Classic set in War Zone. Bergman's brutalized version of beautiful looking ugly characters.

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 8/10 · 3 May 2021]

Skammen / Shame (1968) : Brief Review -

Here is Swedish Arthouse Classic set in War Zone. Bergman's brutalized version of beautiful looking ugly characters. Shame has to be rewarded as one of the most gutsy and brutal classic ever made on War topic as it deals with the horrors of war without giving a soft touch to the main characters. Mostly War films shows us 'good characters' being tortured but how many war films have shown us ugly characters? In Shame, Bergman does that thing and that too without losing ampathetic sense. In the midst of a civil war, former violinists Jan and Eva, who have a tempestuous marriage, run a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives. It has those typical Bergman style scenes full of unethic ingredients. I don't know what he gets by showing extramarital sexual affairs in every film, it doesn't sound good everytime and that's the reason i called the characters 'Ugly'. Though it has pretty implausible reason like War effects on human nature and life but still i personally don't like watching such stuff. Ullmann and von Sydow play Eva and Jan in the film and both of them are just terrific. Ullman's monologue when she talks about having a child on coffee table is so impressive and it is a long shot with still frame. Sydow in those emotional breakdown scenes is brilliant and then he goes completely opposite in the ending portion to show brutal change. Shame is a very important film for art lovers because War theme has always provided mainstream dramas except for a few Classics. I was surprised to see Bergman making such a pacy, loud and explosive film. It was a pleasant surprise though. Overall, An Absolute Classy Product.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Scenes from a War/Marriage: Emasculation and Misogyny in the Face of Death

[mockturtle · 6/10 · 28 March 2005]

That is what a windbag documentary of this film "Shame" should be called. I am afraid that I didn't quite get the message that I was supposed to from this film. Rather, I got those messages but another one came through more strongly.

I did not feel that what we were being told about the characters was what we were being shown about the characters. We are supposed, so I believe, to feel that they are balanced: that he's a coward and she's a shrew. But despite that I was not convinced that von Sydow's character was a coward. Ullman's character married a musician who takes medication for a heart condition. As the film progressed I found myself disliking the Ullman character more and more. She henpecks him for this and that and emasculates him and cheats on him with Bjornstrand because he's in charge and thus more potent and only is repentant when he is ready to give up, it's nuts: she turns a gentle solicitous man into a madman who at the end when he puts on a scarf I was expecting him to tie on a headband.

Yes, the dehumanization of man is an overall theme as well: at the beginning they stop their car to see if people are okay but by the end they are poling their way over dead soldiers (not checking them for supplies, by the way), but it isn't really the war that does that to them, it seems to be each other. And finally she cares if they ever speak to one another again when she has pushed him until he has snapped and shot her lover; that finally gets him some respect. Who knows, maybe that is the point: that it is this alpha mindset that sets the stage for war to begin with.

I understand that I "missed the point." But everyone that speaks about this film speaks about the human race, when instead we watch a terrible wife character drive her poor husband insane: that's the thing that actually is on the screen throughout the film.

"It's best to know nothing."

[brogmiller · 10/10 · 30 June 2022]

Historically, Sweden is notoriously neutral and prides itself on being a peace-loving nation and as such has never endured the humiliation of occupation or the horrors of day and night bombardment. Ingmar Bergman, indisputably Sweden's greatest director, had asked himself how he would have behaved should his country have been overrrun and this moral dilemma has borne fruit in what must be his most despairing, pessimistic and arguably most powerful film.

Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow again play a tortured couple but here their lives are changed forever by the outbreak of war. Her gradual transformation from impatience to compassion and his journey from gentle complacency to utter heartlessness are deeply affecting whilst Gunner Bjornstrand gives one of his greatest performances for this director as the Quisling whose summary execution is devastating.

It is filmed starkly by Bergman regular Sven Nykvist who once more shows his mastery at harnessing natural light. The editing is again by Ulla Ryghe and Bergman's long takes are riveting. Although the two leading characters are musicians there is no score here, in keeping with Bergman's films of the sixties where music is used either sparingly or not at all.

The film was written a year before the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia and before the war in Vietnam reached such catastrophic proportions and as Bergman himself noted, "had these two things already happened, my film would have worn a different aspect."

It had a mixed reaction on its release and even now, for reasons I cannot fathom, has its detractors. Bergman was accused of being apolitical, artistically aloof and of sitting on the fence but the passage of time shows his film to be alarmingly prescient. Although it could hardly be described as a war film, its harrowing depiction of fear, complicity and the shattering effect of conflict on ordinary, non-combatant citizens, marks it out as one of the greatest 'anti-war' films whose relevance is timeless.

Shame

[rd7-1 · 6/10 · 15 February 2005]

Ingmar Bergman's "Shame" is a simple yet effective tale of the devastation war has on people, both physically and emotionally. The couple whose life changes forever, Jan and Eva, are both likable characters, and Bergman does a good job keeping the film focused on them instead of getting into too many complicated stories with minor characters. A film like this would likely be over two and a half hours if made today, as Hollywood would likely turn the story into an overblown action movie. That being said, Shame's lack of depth does hurt it a bit, as it is possible audiences will not express any concern for Jan and Eva without more scenes to grow attached to them.

A film not about the outer violence of war but about its inner violence

[frankde-jong · 10/10 · 17 November 2021]

"Shame" is one of the few movies of Bergman about war. Not about a specific war, but about war in general. Maybe Bergman was frustrated that just one scene in his film "Persona" (1966), namely the scene about the burning monk, had linked this film inseparably with the war in Vietnam. "Shame" is also a film that illuminates the war from a civilian perspective and the effects war has on their lives. "Shame" is therefore no film for lovers of patriotism and heroism.

After more than 50 years "Persona" is the better remembered movie from the Bergman oeuvre. Even Bergman himself ultimately had second thoughts about "Shame". It was too ambitious and you can't cover all aspects of war in 100 minutes. That's correct but if that is the standard to meet, no director can ever make a war movie again. For me "Shame" is one of the best war movies I ever saw, with his generic setting and emphasis on the effects on civilians.

The film is about the couple Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Jan (Max von Sydow) Rosenberg. Originally they were musicians, but they have decided to live a sober but quiet life on the countryside. They grow vegetables and have a few chicken. They are really somewhat isolated because their radio is broken and their car is a little shaky. Many reviewers are of the opinion that the marriage between Jan and Eva is bad even befor the war begins (or, more accurate, reaches them). I don't think so. They argue, for example about Jan not managing to repair the radio, but after that they spend a lot of energy to reconcile with one another. They are also able to enjoy the small things in life, for example when they have enough money to buy a bottle of white wine.

But all of sudden their little cottage is right in the frontline. One moment it is controlled by one army, the next moment it is controlled by the other. Eva and Jan find themselves in a situation also described by the Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans in his book "The house of refuge" (1952).

The violence of war and the landscape with houses on fire all over the place is really scary and in my opinion more realistic than for example in the second half of "Full metal Jacket" (1987, Stanley Kubrick).

As Bergman himself indicates "Shame" is not so much about the "outer violence" as about the "inner violence". With the inner violence he meant (I think) the fact that pure self preservation dominates the main characters more and more. With it goes inevitably a loss of civilisation. This is true for Eva, who has sex with a military officer for ..., yes for what? For savety?

It is however especially true for Jan. At first he becomes a real coward, in images that reminded me of "Tourist" (2014, Ruben Ostlund)). Later he turns brutal and cruel. These two kinds of behaviour at first seem far removed from each other, but have both an an all-consuming urge for self-preservation as their basis.

The film ends with some stunning images. I won't say a word about them, except that they will not easily be forgotten.

well written and depressing--pretty much what you'd expect from Bergman

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 July 2005]

It came as no surprise to me that this was a very depressing and draining movie. After all, it's all about the impact of war on civilians AND it's by the "king of depression", Ingmar Bergman. In other words, so many of Bergman's works delve deep into human misery and angst and so this movie seems not so extraordinary coming from this director.

Even though it is more difficult to watch, the last half of the movie offers perhaps more insight into the lower depths of humanity. That's because initially, the main characters (Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow) try to overcome adversity and are basically decent (though a bit stupid) people. However, as deprivation after deprivation occurs, they (especially Von Sydow) become less and less humane and more animalistic--doing ANYTHING in order to survive.

Fun to watch, NO FREAKING WAY! But, an interesting insight into human nature.

PS--1 thing I LOVED about this film is that it avoided a stupid movie chiche. When the couple sat down with the shopkeeper to drink a glass or wine, they FINISHED the wine completely! In most movies, they barely touch their drinks or leave them untouched. It drives me crazy, as I would NEVER leave a $4 alcoholic beverage without drinking it unless it tasted terrible or had a bug floating in it! BRAVO!

No shame in criticizing "Shame"

[ked10 · 5/10 · 14 February 2005]

I tried to enjoy the critically acclaimed Ingmar Bergman film "Skammen" (Shame). However, I was unable to relate to the characters and left the movie feeling indifferent. The film began with the overly emotional Jan and the fearsome and critical Eva. There was no explanation for this behavior yet the characters changed throughout the film. Jan and Eva had a role reversal because of the harsh realities of the war. However, because you could not understand their actions before, you could not relate to them after their transition. Bergman's choice of black and white cinematography was beneficial in creating a bleak and desolate country depraved by war. The camera angles on some of the "war" scenes and the final shot on the boat were also praise worthy. I do not agree with his choice to limit music and sound in the film, especially since Jan and Eva were musicians. If Bergman had used more sound and created understandable characters, my experience with Shame would have been more positive.