Consoling passion?

It was interesting watching this ‘German’ Bergman in the midst of the New German films I’ve been looking at. Whilst I think of Bergman as a ‘philosophical’ filmmaker often dealing with characters’ metaphysical angst, watching these characters trying to deal with their anomie, after yesterday’s Fassbinder, suggests that – in this film at least – Bergman is critiquing the bourgeoisie.

This probably out-grims the Fassbinder. Partly this is to do with the bleak monochrome cinematography (Nykvist: brilliant of course); partly the devastating, opening murder – shot in lurid red – that sets the rest of the film up as an investigation into the protagonists’ motivation.