Bergman trapped four women in a room and filmed their souls escaping through dance.
This short dance film presents four women moving within a narrow, enclosed room to music by Claudio Monteverdi. Conceived as a dance play rather than a ballet, the performers embody recurring female roles passed down across generations, including figures identified as damned souls, death, and a child compelled into the same patterns.
Direction
Bergman's camera becomes a fifth prisoner, complicit in the confinement.
Cinematography
Sven Nykvist squeezes eternity into shadows and pale skin.
Score
Monteverdi's 400-year-old grief lands like it was written yesterday.
Director
Ingmar Bergman
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