7. Through A Glass Darkly (1961)
The film follows poor Karin who is an incurable schizophrenic and her gradual disintegration into madness when she is holidaying with her husband, father and brother. Her father is a famous writer and Karin comes across his diary detailing his cold and morbid fascination with chronicling her illness. She starts to believe that God is a spider hiding in the cracks of an upstairs room's walls. We witness Karin's psychotic break while her husband impotently sobs. She goes back to hospital on the basis that she cannot exist in two parallel versions of reality. The subject matter - intractable schizophrenia - is a delicate one to handle but Bergman shows his usual deft touch in treating Karin's illness as a personal torment and tragedy for her as well as a terrifying experience for her family. The quartet cast are marvellous in their roles and Harriet Andersson's portrayal of schizophrenia is one of the more accurate versions we have seen of the illness in cinema history. Ultimately the film ends on a positive note. Minus, Karin's brother, has a very distant relationship with his father whom he idolises. After Karin gets spirited away back to the hospital, Minus and his father have a conversation and the film ends with Minus' face lighting up in ecstasy - "Father spoke to me". Suggesting that the emotional alienation that was between the four characters is not as marked as originally thought and can be overcome. It was a lovely touch of Bergman to end on a positive note after the harrowing drama.