Blu-ray Review: 'cries And Whispers’

The arrival on Blu-ray of Ingmar Bergman’s 1972 masterpiece, with Harriet Andersson as a dying woman attended by her two sisters (Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin) and a loving housemaid, is especially welcome in that the colors in this film — specifically the reds — are a significant part of its impact. Film scholar Peter Cowie does an on-camera interview with Harriet Andersson, who is as unaffected and down to earth as she is talented. The Blu-ray also contains an interview Bergman did for the film about 10 years ago and an extended interview with him and frequent collaborator Erland Josephson, done for television when Bergman was 82. Like the greatest of artists, Bergman not only has the capacity to perceive the truth but a willingness to express it without compromise. Andersson’s death scene might be the most excruciating in cinema history, and the clashes between the sisters are extreme and merciless.