沉默1963

火车上，两个女人和一个男孩正待在一个隔间里。那是一段不愉快的旅程，我们能感觉到女人之间的互相厌恶和紧张气氛。男孩漫步到走廊里，打量其他乘客，看到另一列火车经过，车厢上载有装甲坦克。火车停在一个不知名的城市，三个人在一个旅馆登记入住。就这样，伯格曼开始了他的神之沉默三部曲的第三部——《沉默》（1963）。如果说《冬日之光》是直指上帝的沉默，《犹在镜中》是暗示上帝的沉默，那么《沉默》则完全没有神学的存在——只有一个被上帝抛弃的世界。

通过对话，我们间接了解到这些人物，一次提到父亲的谈话揭示出她们的姐妹关系。姐姐Ester（英格丽·图林）是一名翻译，一个看起来严厉，痛苦和失望的人。她快要死了。妹妹Anna（古内尔·林德布洛姆）看上去更年轻，更性感，对这次旅行感到不耐烦。尽管她们很明显是要回家，却没有任何迹象表明她们从哪里来，她们为什么去那里，以及她们在哪里。甚至连Ester也不认得这里的语言，而且很奇怪的是，一家坐落在欧洲的大饭店，里面的门房既不会说德语也不会说英语。

男孩Johan（Jörgen Lindström）还未成年，他有着一张天使般的面孔，天性纯良。他是Anna的儿子，不过显然长期生活在两个不睦的姐妹之间。她们不和睦的原因从来没有具体说明，但是明显从童年时代就已经存在隔阂，并且这些往事隐晦地牵涉到她们的父亲。如今Ester快要死了，Anna对她却没有丝毫同情，反而声称要到外面去寻找一夜情（出于某种原因我们可以理解），或者至少是让她看到自己不忠的行为。

影片显得深藏不露，故事的绝大部分内容都隐含在对话的字里行间。这里我尝试性地对影片进行分析：Anna 在旅馆里和一个男人发生性关系，代表了身体。Ester在房间里工作和看书，代表了思想。分隔两人房间的那扇门是她们上演竞争的出入口，只有Johan可以没有顾虑地来回穿梭。

我认为男孩是理解这部电影的关键——至于以何种方式，我还不确定。或许影片中他对两个女人本能的同情，是为了向我们展示一个完整的人，而不是被分成身体和思想的碎块。他在电影中的场景又多又长，隐隐散发着微妙的幽默感和魅力。他笑得不多，也不哗众取宠，只是严肃地观察周围的成人世界。一次，他在走廊里偷偷撒尿，当他走开时，他满意的回头看了看水洼。这或许是一次气愤和失望的表达，除此之外，他所做的任何事都无法解释这一点。

他花了大量时间去探索这座怪异而空旷的旅店的长廊。他遇到的人很少。有一个电工对他怒目而视，因为看到他用玩具手枪指着自己。一队侏儒演员邀请他去他们房间，给他穿上裙子，接着一名侏儒在床上来回蹦跳着逗乐他。最有趣的一个人物是门房（Hakan Jahnberg），他显得年迈，驼背和奉承。这个老人住在地板上的小隔间里，他在里面解决三餐，会偷偷喝上一点酒，并且积极的向Ester提供客房服务，不论她呼叫得多么频繁。此处有一个美妙的镜头：当门房从后面猛的扑到Johan身上，挠他痒痒时，Johan挣扎着跑开了。门房动作僵硬地试图去追赶他，但是Johan消失在了拐角。接着仍然在同一个连续的镜头里面，门房转过身并从摄像机面前走过，与此同时Johan出乎意料地出现在他身后的门口。

本片由斯文·尼科维斯特掌镜，他是伯格曼长时间以来的合作伙伴。我不确定我是否可以作如此联想：影片中关于Johan在旅店走廊的场景，看起来神似雅克塔蒂的做法，门房同于洛先生略有相似之处，男孩则像那阵恶作剧似的狂风，总是将于洛先生吹离既定的生活轨道。至于以如此精确的镜头拍摄的走廊，像极了塔蒂为干扰人物活动而作的几何空间布局。

门房给Ester提供了很大的帮助。尽管他们没有共同的语言，他也能明白她是想要一瓶酒和一些食物。烟一支接一支地抽，酒不停地喝，她痛苦地大声哭喊，她不想孤独地客死他乡，她害怕自己窒息而死。门房将她撒上酒的床收拾干净，他给他端来一杯水，扶着她喝了下去。他甚至会陪伴着她，在旁边阅读报纸，脸上满是担心。当他进入画面，他就像一个幽灵似的访客，在那弯腰打探，但他的心灵是美好的。这是一场非凡的演出，其中的任何一个词都不是我们可以轻易理解的。

当安娜离开旅店，她走在街上，进入一个酒吧，就像一朵等待采摘的鲜花。她来到一座剧院包厢，看见一对男女正在进行性交，就在她眼皮子底下。她感到极度不适，并匆匆离开。后来她选中一个男人，把他带回了旅店。Johan看到他们在一起，但是她压根就不在乎。他把看到的事告诉Ester，某种程度上来说，这是他在为自己寻求解释。他完全处在一个悲惨的境地：他还太小，却不得不面对许多他这个年纪还不能理解的事。

影片中将孩子与成年人的行为并置的场景令人感到不安，尽管我们注意到伯格曼用了一种常用的策略，试图将男孩放置在单独的镜头里，这样他就看不到所发生的一切。在当时，这部电影是惊世骇俗的，因为它本身充满了裸露镜头和露骨的性描写。出于某种原因伯格曼一直是被认为是理性和独立的，但是惊世骇俗的肉欲也常常是他作品的一部分。一件事他越少提到，反而越是显得真诚而温柔。

回顾整部电影，伯格曼的重点一如往常地还是落在人物的面孔上。Johan作为一个局外人，旁观者，他的面孔常常占据一整个画面。他通常从侧面，或是以一定角度倾斜着看向女人们。尼科维斯特的光线运用恰到好处。他会将半张脸置于阴影中，或是以一定角度从后面射入光线，或是在一个双人特写镜头中分别照亮人物的脸。有一个镜头是这样的：Ester站在窗户旁，窗框的阴影在她脸上投下一个十字的形状。本来这很常见，但是直到窗框和阴影的位置在窗帘上出现，我们才注意到光源来自于下方。而从她整天都在向外看的情况来说，光源应该来自于上方。尼科维斯特总是在本职工作中发挥他的影响，却能做到不露痕迹。

贯穿整部电影的是一种不详的预感。影片开头火车上的坦克在后面再次出现，一个巨大的坦克在旅店门前的街道上隆隆作响，停滞了一会才继续前进。没有爆炸，没有战斗，但战争似乎总是迫在眼前。当Ester的病情变得非常严重时，电影配乐响起了一阵古怪的呜鸣。是空袭警报？或是地狱之声？我们无从得知。但是在结尾，当Anna冷冷地告诉姐姐她将带着Johan坐下一列火车离开时，Johan回身向Ester承诺：“我们会回来的。”这个孩子给故事带来了希望，而希望就是他或许能够活到成年。所以如果你不相信上帝是沉默的，那么祂确实一直沉默着。

原文：

Two women and a boy share a compartment on a train. It is an unhappy journey, and we sense tension and dislike between the women. The boy wanders out into the corridor, stares at other passengers, watches as another train passes by, its cars carrying armored tanks. The train stops in an unnamed city, and the three check into a hotel. So begins Ingmar Bergman's "The Silence" (1963), the third part of his "Silence of God" trilogy. If "Winter Light" (1962) directly referred to God's silence, and "Through a Glass Darkly" (1961) did so by implication, there is no theology in "The Silence" -- only a world bereft of it.

We learn about the characters indirectly, through their dialogue; a reference to their father reveals that they are sisters. One is Ester (Ingrid Thulin), a translator, a woman who looks severe, pained, disappointed. She is dying. The other is Anna (Gunnel Lindblom), younger, more voluptuous, impatient with this journey. Although they are apparently going "home," there is no indication of where they were or why they went there, and no clear idea of where they are. Even Ester, the translator, doesn't recognize the language, and in a European grand hotel, it is odd that the hall porter speaks no German or English.

The boy, not yet an adolescent, is Johan (Jorgen Lindstrom). He has an angelic face and a sweet nature. He is Anna's son, but apparently has long lived in the middle between the two spiteful sisters. The reason for their spite is never specified, but goes back to childhood and obscurely involves their father. Now that Ester is dying, Anna has little pity for her and flaunts the fact that she is going out into the city -- for sex, we somehow understand, or at least as a show of disloyalty.

The film is oblique. Most of the rest of the story involves reading between the lines. I could turn analytical and point out that Anna, who picks up a man and has sex with him in the hotel, represents Body, and that Ester, who works and reads in bed and at the table in her room, represents Mind. The doorway between their rooms is the portal through which they stage their rivalry, and only Johan passes back and forth thoughtlessly.

I think the boy is the key to the film -- in what way, I'm not sure. Perhaps the instinctive sympathy he feels for both women is intended to show us a whole person, not parceled into flesh and thought. His scenes in the film, and they are numerous and lengthy, permit a subtle humor and charm to creep in. He doesn't smile much, isn't a clown, observes gravely the adult world around him. At one point, he stops in a corridor and pees, and as he walks away he glances back at the puddle with a certain satisfaction. It is perhaps an expression of resentment and frustration, and nothing else he does accounts for it.

He spends a lot of time exploring the long, stately corridors of the strangely deserted hotel. He encounters few people. There is an electrician, who scowls at him when he threatens the man with his cap pistol. A troupe of dwarf vaudevillians, who invite him into their room, garb him in a dress and bounce on the bed to entertain him. And, most intriguingly, there's the ancient, bent, ingratiating hall porter (Hakan Jahnberg). This old man occupies a small cubbyhole on the floor, where he takes his meals, sneaks drinks from a flask and responds to Ester, who rings fiercely for service. There is a beautiful shot when the porter sneaks up on Johan from behind and pounces on him, tickling him, so that Johan squeals and runs away. The porter stiffly tries to pursue him, but Johan disappears around a corner. Still in one unbroken shot, the porter turns and passes the camera, as Johan surprisingly appears in a doorway behind him.

The film was photographed by Sven Nykvist, Bergman's great longtime collaborator, and I wonder if I can be excused for noticing in Johan's scenes in the hotel corridors a faint echo of Jacques Tati. The porter bears some slight resemblance to Monsieur Hulot, the boy represents the anarchic winds that were always blowing him off course, and the corridors, filmed with such exact precision, are the geometric spaces which Tati loved to violate with human activity.

The porter is a great help to Ester. Although they have not a word in common, he understands that she wants a bottle of liquor, and then food. Chain-smoking, guzzling the drink, she cries out that she does not want to die alone, away from home. She is terrified of suffocating. The porter cleans up the mess after she spills the bottle in the bed. He brings her a glass of water, supporting her while she drinks it. He even keeps her company, reading his newspaper, and in his face, there is worry and concern. As he enters the frame, he is like a spectral visitor stooping down to inquire, but his heart is good. It is an extraordinary performance, containing not a word we can understand.

When Anna leaves the hotel, she carries herself on the streets and into a bar like a woman asking to be picked up. She enters a theater balcony and sees a couple having sexual intercourse right in front of her. She is disgusted and leaves. Later she picks up a man and brings him to the hotel. Johan sees them together, but she hardly cares. He tells Ester what he has seen. In a way he is asking for an explanation. He is placed in the sad position of being a child too young to process the information in his life, which he somehow senses is urgent.

The juxtaposition of the child with the scenes of adult behavior is disquieting, although we note that Bergman used the usual strategy for separating the boy into separate shots so he would not see and hear what we do. The film itself was scandalous at the time, with nudity and unusual sexual frankness. Bergman is somehow always thought of as cerebral and detached, but shocking carnality is often a part of his work; one thing he more rarely offers, however, is a sincere and tender romantic scene.

Throughout the film, Bergman's emphasis, as so often, is on the face. He usually has Johan, the outsider, the onlooker, in a one-shot, often full face. He usually sees the women from the side, or at an angle, oblique to one another. Nykvist's lighting is precise. He will hold half a face in shadow, or light from behind at an angle, or light the faces in a two-shot separately. There's one shot where Ester stands at a window, and the shadow of the window frame throws a cross upon her face. Not unusual, until we note from the position of the frame and the shadow that the light source is from below, and since she is looking out in the full of day, it should be from above. Nykvist is always at work, finding his effects, concealing his techniques.

Over the film hangs a tone of foreboding. The tanks on the train are matched, later, by a single massive tank that rumbles down the street in front of the hotel, pauses and then passes on. There are no explosions, no battles, but war always seems at hand. When Ester's illness reaches a crisis, there is an odd loud moaning on the soundtrack. An air-raid warning? The music of hell? We do not know. But at the end, when Anna coldly tells her sister that she and Johan are leaving on the next train, Johan returns to promise Ester, "We'll be back." The child carries hope in the film. The problem is for hope to survive into adulthood. If you did not believe that God was silent, it would.