Winter Light (1963) ***1/2

I tend to have difficulty relating to films that center on religion, myself not being religious in the slightest. But Ingmar Bergman always offers something in his stories which causes me to pause and ponder. Winter Light (1963) concerns a pastor's (Gunnar Björnstrand) crisis of faith, his subserviently dedicated lover (Ingrid Thulin), and his inability to alleviate the debilitative fears of one of his parishioners (Max von Sydow). I didn't connect with Winter Light as deeply as the rest of Bergman's work that I've seen but I appreciated many things about it—it's deliberately slow quality, its beautifully intimate cinematography by Sven Nykvist, and most of all, its lack of resolution in regard to existential doubt.

You can find my Ingmar Bergman Feature Films Ranked list here.