The end of this movie is so philosophically profound that it may change your entire belief system. I can't think of any movie that is as much an existentialist/metaphysic masterpiece as this great film.
sharemarmenta, I shake and cry at the end of this film. I've brought friends and family to see it, but none responds quite as I do. The concept of god is a tragedy, but the ending of this film is a triumph.
shareI had the same reaction. I actually stopped breathing and put my hand to my mouth. I drifted into peripheral vision and my entire body flooded with adrenalin. I was shaking for about ten minutes after the end, I barely knew where I was.
shareWell, I grew up in a religious home, and I was religious until around 22. I've been an atheist since then, and I had a very hard struggle to leave the religious world. I generally have very little patience with people who really believe in God and other such nonsense and fairy tales. But this film left me breathless, and I don't know why. Interestingly enough, when I heard all the quotes that Windfoot mentions, I wasn't very impressed with them, becuase they are all basically platitudes, trite expressions and homilies that every kid learns to parrot, religious or not. I felt that all those commonplace ideas like goodness, and kindness, and ethics are ordinary human values, which even a person who is not religious believes. But miracles, revelation, and such are, of course, completely different. The ending of the film was so affecting to me. Partly I think it is because the direction and stylization of the miracle is so honest and unencumbered by the juvenile and silly "special effects" that we have come to expect so often. The way that Dreyer presents the lives of these people--simple, honest, genuine, is so different from most everything we see today. True--there was primitive inhumanity displayed, in the refusal of both fathers to agree to a genuine love match between their children. This was very upsetting. All I could think was--"What would Jesus Christ have said to these two old unfeeling men, whio were refusing to allow their children to marry--in the name of a religion based supposedly on love??" Only after Inger dies do they both realize how important love is, in a world callous and unfeeling. The film could conceivably have ended at that point, and it would have been a beautiful, albeit somewhat hackneyed story. Don't forget that the point of the miracle is to illustrate what Johannes (John) claims: That everyone there claims they are religious, but they don't really believe. If they would, they could bring Inger back to life. I am rambling....I really do not understand why this film had such an impact on me. I think it took courage for a filmmaker to go the way he did. Everyone, I suspect, would be tempted to laugh at the ending. I honestly don't know why I didn't. Maybe because it was presented so honestly, without all the trappings of wealth and power that accompany most religious culture, whether Jewish or Christian. But I do think that the film must have a very different meaning for someone who is really religious, believes in God, from the one it had for me. I'm still thinking about what it meant for me, and trying to figure it out. I just saw the film for the first time (Thank you, TCM). More comments maybe later.
Allen Roth
"I look up, I look down..."
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***Possible Spoilers***
I truly loved this film even though I am not a devout Chrisitian. It is a beautiful meditation on faith and family. I thought that the ending was sublime, with Dreyer leaving it up to the audience to decide whether Inger's resurrection was physical or spiritual.
it's so rare to see that someone actually uses the film medium to its maximum. pictures shouldn't be too crude, they should be the perfect mean for exploring the untouchable. now, the way Dreyer does lay people's inside to the spectator may appear seamless and therefore taken for granted. but not many directors go that far into the psyche and blend on the way so many emotions: carnal love (Inger and Mikkel), delirium (Johannes), austerity and gentleness (Morten), humor (Peter and Morten), fever of the first love (Andres), sacrifice (Inger)...and still having the final result that is bold in violating the rules of reality (or maybe not? for what we know, Inger might have been only mortified, not truly dead) and not throwing the moral of the story in our face.
the film leaves us with some sweet taste in the mouth. the sweetness that isn't known and cheap, but the kind of taste that is all fresh but still unmistakably sweet.
imho, Dreyer leaves Bergman in many ways bloodless.
The greatest endings in the history of cinema:
1.Sansho the Bailiff
2.Greed
3.L'Aventura
4.Andrei Rublev
5.Ordet
6.Pierrot le fou
7.The Conformist
8.City Lights
9.The Bicycle thief
10.2001:A Space Odyssey
Andrei Rublev certainly has an ending reminiscent of Sansho the Bailiff, surprisingly Tarkovsky encompasses a lot of the themes Mizoguchi touches on in many of his pictures. The parallel between the two aforementioned films are obvious, but overall I think that both directors' humanism bear a striking resemblance to one another.
Last film seen: The Virgin Spring 9/10
Very insightful, thank you for this.
shareHow can anyone make a list of the greatest endings of all time and completely overlook Charlton Heston movies? Where's Planet of the Apes? Where's Soylent Green? How about Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments? Spartacus, anyone? (Okay, so that last one is not a Charlton Heston film, but as far as I'm concerned it's close enough.) Get on the ball and either revise this list to include some Charlton Heston films, or change the title to something more honest, like "The greatest endings in the history of cinema (excluding Charlton Heston films)."
-- TopFrog
Dreyer handled it so well as a director that I went with it. Notice how (unless I'm mistaken) the close-ups of the girl represent the only time he brings us closer to a character without moving the camera; in fact even the cuts between the coffin and the other people in the room are radical for the film. And the way we hold on the body for so long, barely detecting movement...only in the last week have I seen The Passion of Joan of Arc and this, and on the basis of these 2 films I can say Dreyer was one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived. An obvious point perhaps, but I have difficulties with some of the filmmakers he's lumped in with (Bresson, Ozu - for different reasons) yet have no trouble "getting into" his movie. It reminded me of Bergman a lot, actually, though perhaps I should say vice-versa since it preceeded Bergman's major work. And of course it has its very own flavor, courtesy of its highly individual and talented auteur.
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Yes, that's true.
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The greatest ending in the history of motion pictures - what a completely ridiculous statement! No-one on this planet has or ever will watch every film ever made so no-one can make that statement.
shareBah! I didn't like the edning. I don't buy that nonsense. Such nonsense! It felt like Dreyer went all hollywood on me, and topped it with a close up in this otherwise minimalistic film..
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