Shame

1968 • 103 minutes

About this movie

Shame was both Ingmar Bergman's examination of the violent legacy of World War II and his scathing response to the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann star as musicians living in quiet retreat on a remote island farm, until the civil war that drove them from the city catches up with them there. Amid the chaos of the military struggle, vividly evoked by pyrotechnics and by Sven Nykvist's handheld camera work, the two are faced with uncomfortable moral choices. This film, which contains some of the greatest scenes in Bergman's oeuvre, shows the devastating impact of war on individual lives.

Ratings and reviews

A terribly sad, depressing movie. Not one of Bergman's greatest. At first it seems very artificial, like a bad children's play with cardboard figures and gratuitous violence. But as it proceeds, it exposes human venality, vulnerabilty, despair and hopelessness. It's a war movie, where all the combatants look the same and no one can tell who's on which side. And does it matter? Bergman's point from start to finish is too obvious, even if moving.

a. Einstein...... relatively speaking