The Virgin Spring

In Brief: Highly regarded, but little loved, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960) was a title the director himself seems to have had little fondness for. I tend to agree with that. The fact that it was successfully marketed on the exploitation value of its story — rape and revenge — should perhaps tell you that this an ugly film. No, I don't mean visually. Though more austere than the films that preceded it, The Virgin Spring is visually striking, though in a drab way (which I can only assume was deliberate). It is Bergman stripped to his essentials. Unlike the films that came before it, there's not a hint of humor in The Virgin Spring. It exists in a grim world and is grimly presented. Is it a bad film? By no means, but it's one I can do without. This excerpt was taken from a review by Ken Hanke published on Oct. 6, 2015.