"Actor: Allan Edwall"

• The Sacrifice | Blu Ray | (03/10/2016) from £10.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (81.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In a typical visionary style, Tarkovsky's depiction of the dawn of WWII and its effects on an isolated family group is awash with breathtaking cinematography and resounds with a deep, mythical profundity. BAFTA Winner (Best Foreign Language Film 1988). Winner of 4 awards at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

• Winter Light | DVD | (19/11/2001) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The second of an Ingmar Bergman trilogy, 1962's Winter Light is a deliberate repudiation of the "God is love" message of its predecessor Through a Glass Darkly. Gunnar Bjornstrand stars as Tomas, a pastor in a remote parish tending to a dwindling congregation, as tense and distracted as David--the novelist Bjornstrand plays in Through a Glass Darkly. He finds himself trying to counsel a local fisherman Jonas, who is plagued by a sense of impending atomic doom but realises that the religious platitudes he consoles him with--"put your faith in the Lord"--are mere drivel. He himself is wracked by religious doubts, unable to tolerate "God's silence" and unable to prevent the fisherman from committing suicide. He finds himself taking out his inner woe on his eczema-riddled mistress, played by an unflatteringly made up Ingrid Thulin. Described by Bergman's own wife as a "dreary masterpiece", the synopsis to Winter Light seems almost comically miserable, yet this passion play is gripping in its unsparing bleakness, bathed in the stark illumination implied by the title, ironically akin to the light of a religious epiphany. Released at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, its preoccupations and all-pervasive anxieties are especially apt. On the DVD: Bergman's own notes reveal that Winter Lightis among his own favourites and he explains the evolution of the film's ideas at some length. Critic Philip Strick's background notes reveal that Gunnar Bjornstrand was exhausted and ill for much of the making of the film, which doubtless enhanced his anguished performance here. --David Stubbs

• The Virgin Spring | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Made in 1960 and set in mediaeval Sweden, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring is based on a folk ballad. It also examines a society in transition from worshipping the old Norse gods to Christianity. The film starkly contrasts Ingeri--a dark, feral Odin-worshipping brunette, foster daughter to a Christian family headed by Max Von Sydow--and their own daughter, Karin, pretty and blonde but also vain and naive, and resented by Ingeri. 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 goatherders, accompanied by a 13-year-old boy. By coincidence, the goatherders 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 Kurosawa, the Japanese director of The Seven Samurai, 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 Kieslowki's A Short Film About Killing in their sense of the futility of vengeance. On the DVD: The Virgin Spring arrives on disc in a restoration that vividly enhances the sense of light and shade which is integral to the movie. Notes from critic Phillip Strick provide background to the movie, including the legend on which the film was based, as well as observing that Bergman was later so embarrassed by the film's debt to Kurosawa that he disowned it, only to be told by Kurosawa himself not to be so silly. --David Stubbs

• Bergman - the Faith Trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly / Winter Light / The Silence) | DVD | (28/01/2008) from £15.45   |  Saving you £14.54 (94.11%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Between 1961 and 1963, Ingmar Bergman embarked on three films thematically concerned with man's relationship to God and the futility of spiritual belief. Together, The Faith Trilogy proved a turning point for the director, securing his collaboration with cinematographer Sven Nykvist and exhibiting his mastery for direction. Through a Glass Darkly (1961): A schizophrenic girl has visions, believing that God's presence is ever closer. However as her descent into madness deepens, ...

• All These Women | DVD | (26/07/2004) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Pretentious music critic Cornelius is writing a biography on a famous cellist. In order to execute the very best research Cornelius goes to stay in his house for a few days prompting all sorts of comedic consequences... A change of pace for Bergman this black farce (his first feature in colour) is his distinctive way of taking a pot shot at critics a film that proves Berman can be enchanting and amusing without losing his familiar melancholic air.

• Fanny And Alexander | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £24.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Fanny and Alexander is one of the more upbeat and accessible films from Ingmar Bergman. This autobiographical story follows the lives of two children during one tumultuous year. After the death of the children's beloved father, a local theatre owner, their mother marries a strict clergyman. Their new life is cold and ascetic, especially when compared to the unfettered and impassioned life they knew with their father. Most of the story is seen through the eyes of the little boy and is often told in dreamlike sequences. Colourful, insightful, and optimistic, this is far less grim than most of Bergman's work. It was awarded four of the six Oscars for which it was nominated in 1984, including Best Foreign Language Film. Though this was announced as his last film, Bergman continued to work into the late 1990s, though mostly for Swedish television.--Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com

• The Sacrifice | DVD | (03/10/2016) from £8.49   |  Saving you £7.50 (88.34%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In a typical visionary style, Tarkovsky's depiction of the dawn of WWII and its effects on an isolated family group is awash with breathtaking cinematography and resounds with a deep, mythical profundity. BAFTA Winner (Best Foreign Language Film 1988). Winner of 4 awards at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

• The Sacrifice | DVD | (08/07/2013) from £11.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (60.06%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In a typical visionary style Tarkovsky's depiction of the dawn of WWII and its effects on an isolated family group is awash with breathtaking cinematography and resounds with a deep mythical profundity. BAFTA Winner (Best Foreign Language Film 1988). Winner of 4 awards at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

• The Sacrifice | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Set in Sweden Andrei Tarkovsky's last film follows the travails of wealthy patriarch Alexander (Erland Josephson) a former actor and critic who lives in a remote home on the edge of the Baltic Sea. One year on his birthday a sudden television announcement interrupts the celebration with news of a nuclear holocaust. His family and guests suffer through violent fits of hysteria and emotional turmoil in the ensuing days but the previously troubled Alexander finds a clearness of mind