Not many people here understand why Isak is described as cold, I may not myself as this is all only my interpretation, but I feel like I relate with Isak's character. The coldness that is being described is not a traditional Citizen Kane/Henry F. Potter cold, but more of a detached feeling. Isak doesn't dislike people or treat them badly, he simply doesn't care much for them or for life in general. He shares the view his son has in the respect that he believes pain and cruelty is everywhere for no good reason at all. Isak finds himself lonely in his old age, he probably was always shy, but he can make people laugh, tell stories well, show good manners and give good advice to people when he finds himself in social situations. His lack of social life and his exclusion by the many people throughout his life does not come from an inability to interact with other humans, but rather from a lack of effort and commitment. For instance, he admits defeat easily when his brother wins the girl he loves and he probably does nothing but blame himself or lock up his feelings when he sees his wife cheating on him. People don't connect with him emotionally due to his habit of formalities, like when he uses his maid's title when addressing her for year, and this even applies to his family, when he doesn't mind his son paying his debt to him when he doesn't really need the money at all. The scene on the balcony near the end also shows his lack of effort when keeping in touch with people when he wishes he'd asked the youngsters to keep in contact, but he never did even when having plenty of time to with them constantly saying good bye. Perhaps it's because the movie is about himself reflecting at an old age, but it is noteworthy that he often finds himself dreaming about the past, regretting things and being angry at things that have already happened rather than living in the present. He has probably done this most of his life. Isak is a kind and gentle old man as you all say, but he doesn't show the ones he loves enough how much he really cares for them and his loneliness with melancholy is the result, a self-inflicted punishment.
"I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."
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NightHasCome
11 years ago
When said! You echo my thoughts exactly. Isak simply didn't put in enough effort into his social life. He is a nihilist who believed that it wasn't worth his time.
You can see how he has influenced his son as well, it came to the point where his son refused to have a son on the basis that there is nothing but pain and loneliness in this world.
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bhoover247
11 years ago
Isak fell in love as a young man, only to have his brother steal his girlfriend. He later gets married only to have his wife cheat on him. He has a son who seems to dislike him. Being social would probably only bring more people into his life that would betray him, at least I think that's the way Isak sees it.
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kenny-164
11 years ago
Isak is a man whose most significant experience (outside his relation to his parents) came when his first real love was taken by his brother. The film shows him still in effect traumatized by this, decades later. He not only never got over it, it informed his entire life.
The simple fact is that caring and loving have their risks, their downsides if you will. I don't think in Isak's case that he would disagree with the notion that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all - in a way he cherishes even his painful memories. He can use his memories to remember a time when he felt quite ardently, completely. He still loves her, and this is who he is.
But I think Isak has also made a choice to see the world he lives in as presenting limited opportunities for that kind of caring. He presents a sort of question, I think, that arises not in everyone's life, at least not in the same way, but we can all at least see and understand. The question is how many times can one fall truly in love? Can a love later in life really be as deep as earlier ones, as time goes on?
Is there even a desire for such human connection? As time goes on?
It is not the least bit surprising, I think, that Bergman himself essentially isolated himself, to a large extent, in his later life. After his fifth and last wife died, he had his visitors and friends. But he lived after a certain point in near complete isolation, on Faro. I have to wonder as his life proceeded in this period how he might have compared himself to Isak.
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Persian_Goddess
10 years ago
Thank you.
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Bruce_Bell
10 years ago
No, thank you for replying to my post. Since I wrote this almost a year ago I had forgotten how much I loved this film and I think I'm at a point in my life in which reminding me of the messages it carries may be very helpful to me. I'll probably watch it again tonight in fact. So thank you. :)
"I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."
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