The Virgin Spring - Criterion Collection
by Ingmar Bergman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Axel D?berg, Birgitta Pettersson, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom, Max von SydowDirector: Ingmar Bergman
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Sven Nykvist
Producer: Ingmar Bergman
Editor: Oscar Rosander
Producer: Allan Ekelund
Writer: Ulla Isaksson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: German (Original Language); Swedish (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 89 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-01-24
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of The Virgin Spring - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: A good presentation overburdened by by mediocre extras
Summary: 4 Stars
It's hardly one of Bergman's best films, but "The Virgin Spring" is nonetheless magnificent. Bergman has made a variety of attractive films, but few feature such beautiful scenery and exacting composition as this one. The production also benefits from graceful dialogue, intense performances and stark cinematography - elements that overcome a weak story that was ineptly adapted from the ballad "T?res dotter i W?nge." But even at its weakest - probably during the stilted, conspicuously Christian ending - the proceedings are so powerfully enacted that it's impossible not to be moved by it.
I wasn't surprised by the content of this DVD edition. It's like so many other Criterion products - high-quality but stuffed with irrelevant makeweight to justify its exorbitant price. The HD transfer of a Janus Films print was approved by Bergman himself, and it's immaculate; layman and enthusiast alike could not possibly ask for a more beautiful picture, or more vibrant sound.
Scene selections are comprised of three lists of twenty scene titles, and access to an SMPTE color bars test pattern, presumably as a means to determine if the viewer's TV settings are properly calibrated.
The English subtitles are translated with a slightly more lyrical phrasing than those of the old Nelson Entertainment VHS edition that I used to own. I only wish that they were yellow, as they're a bit difficult to see in a few particularly bright scenes. However, the dubbed English dialogue track is not kind to the ear; the few ably voiced roles are eclipsed by some intolerably melodramatic readings. It's unfortunate that von Sydow didn't participate in this dub; he's been fluent in English for a very long time and he's a capable voice actor besides.
"Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide" author Birgitta Steene voices the commentary track, which I imagine is useful for those who need to be promptly anesthetized prior to a surgical procedure. In addition to being mind-numbingly boring, the track is obviously and clumsily read by Mrs. Steene. Even if this weren't the second-worst commentary track that I've heard (the first is Stephen Barber's awkward recording for "Un Chien Andalou"), it would still be inappropriate. "The Virgin Spring" is one of those very rare films that can't possibly benefit from a commentary track. A voice-over for this film is analogous to a display of Mir?'s "The Tilled Field" in which the canvas has been overlaid with a transparent sheet of plastic on which a summary of surrealist visual art has been printed. It's a bad idea, and it's badly executed.
An introduction to the film consists of an interview with Ang Lee, who discusses the movie from a personal perspective. Lee's insights regarding this picture are sound but hardly revelatory, and he's a poor orator. Unlike the literary medium, most films require no introduction, and this one is no exception.
In contrast, the DVD's best special feature is a featurette comprised of a pair of exclusive interviews with Gunnel Lindblom and Birgitta Pettersson, who relate some interesting details and a few charming stories about the movie's production and reception.
Probably the most baffling of all the special features is "Ingmar Bergman at AFI," a forty-minute audio recording of Bergman at the American Film Institute in October, 1975, passionately discussing numerous aspects of film making. While this is certainly interesting, it's not well-suited to a DVD presentation; rather, it's the sort of thing that one might download from a file-sharing network to pleasant - if mild - surprise.
Despite all my criticism, this is hardly a bad disc; if one is to consider the A/V quality and Lindblom/Pettersson interviews, admirers of this film could hardly ask for a better product. However, I think that I type for many in noting that extras featuring people who weren't involved in the making of the film are usually substandard and almost invariably uninteresting. Why pad a classic with filler? I'd rather it without, especially if it meant that Criterion would subtract five to seven dollars from the unreasonable cost of this disc.
Summary of The Virgin Spring - Criterion Collection
Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 01/24/2006Made in 1960 and set in medieval Sweden, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring is based on a folk ballad. It also examines a society in transition from Norse pantheism to Christianity. The film starkly contrasts Ingeri--a dark, feral, Odin-worshipping foster daughter to a Christian family headed by Max Von Sydow--and their own daughter, a pretty and blond but also vain and na?ve girl named Karin, whom Ingeri resents. They travel out together to a distant church where Karin is to offer votive candles to the Virgin Mary. However, en route, Karin is raped and murdered by two desperate goatherds, accompanied by a 13-year-old boy. By coincidence, the goatherds then seek refuge with Karin's parents and even try to sell them her clothes, which proves to be a mortal error.
Bergman was greatly influenced by Akira Kurosawa when he made The Virgin Spring, as evinced in its ominous use of dark and shade and lengthy sequences without dialogue. However, this is more than pastiche. Although the Christian ending with which Bergman feels obliged to conclude the film doesn't quite sit well in a movie in which God is as palpably absent as in any Bergman movie, the slow, remorseless pace of the murder and subsequent retribution bring to mind Krzysztof Kieslowski's A Short Film About Killing in their sense of the futility of vengeance. --David Stubbs
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