Ombre / Ingmar Bergman

Sometimes the soul of a film can be found not in its images but in the darkness between them, not in its sounds but in the silences that connect them. That is certainly the case for the films of Ingmar Bergman. The Swedish master himself alluded to the importance these silent and shadowy spaces held for him in the citation that accompanies this video essay: “The silent shadows turn their pale faces towards me, their inaudible voices speak to my most secret feelings” (from Bergman’s 1987 book The Magic Lantern).

 

Italian photographer and video maker Sandro Lecca took this quotation as his starting point for this video essay. He weaves a beautiful tapestry using visual motifs (shadows and darkness) and recurring auditive tropes (the musicality of silence and the power of music) taken from over a dozen of Bergman’s movies. The power of this piece is in its skilful and unshowy execution: this is a quiet tribute to a master of shadows.