Cries And Whispers, And Sisyphus

The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's

heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

-Albert Camus, The Myth Of Sisyphus

"I wanted to cling to that moment, and I thought, "Come what may, this is happiness.  I cannot wish for anything better.  Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection and I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."

- Cries And Whispers

I watched the movie Cries and Whispers again yesterday.  For some reason, the final scene popped into my head and I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I ended up rewatching the whole movie.   I find the whole thing almost unbearably intense, but the last scene in particular stands out to me.  I can't think of another movie where I've been completely shocked by what is basically a happy ending.  Usually when a movie has a surprising ending, it's something dark.  Cries and Whispers inverts this by subjecting you to an hour and a half of sadness and psychologically tormented women, and then throwing you for a loop with a brief, idyllic reminiscence at the very end.

The movie is generally impressionistic -- and hard to summarize -- and I think most of it is best left unanalyzed.   Quite a bit of it is hard to watch.   Three sisters and their servant suffer throughout.  One of the sisters, Agnes, has cancer and we are forced to watch her endure an agonizing death.  The other two sisters are both stuck in miserable marriages and dealing with their own psychological issues (this is such an understatement it's almost laughable) and misery.  There is a scene where one of these sisters commits an act of self-mutilation that I can barely watch.  The servant, Anna, is the most sympathetic character, but it's still hard to feel anything but sad for her.  We know that her only child is dead, but nothing else.  She is discarded unsympathetically by the family following Agnes' death, despite her saint-like devotion to Agnes in her tortuous final hours.


The women are all well-developed characters, and there's plenty that could be said about their personalities and relationships.  I think the best way to approach the movie, however, is just to watch it, because no matter what you say about it, the emotional intensity of sitting through it cannot really be explained.  The accumulation of all this emotion is what makes the ending shocking, and cathartic.  After subjecting the viewer to an hour and a half of bleakness, Bergman ends the film with aforementioned happy ending: Anna opens up Agnes' journal and reads an entry about a pleasant day the four women had shortly before Agnes' death.   We already know that Agnes is dead, and that she died in the most agonizing fashion possible; the dramatic irony is that the viewer knows exactly how terrible Agnes death will be, while Agnes can only suspect it.  The scene is very brief and I quoted the last line above, but it's worth excerpting this entire part:


Wednesday the third of September-- The tang of autumn fills the clear still air but it's mild and fine. My sisters, Karin and Maria have come to see me. It's wonderful to be together again like in the old days, and I am feeling much better. We were even able to go for a little walk together. Such an event for me, especially since i haven't been out of doors for so long. Suddenly we began to laugh and run toward the old swing that we hadn't seen since we were children. We sat in it like three good little sisters and Anna pushed us, slowly and gently. All my aches and pains were gone. The people I am most fond of in all the world were with me. I could hear their chatting around me. I could feel the presence of their bodies, the warmth of their hands. I wanted to hold the moment fast and thought, "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."


The movie ends abruptly following the end of this passage.  It is an enormous change in tone from the rest of the movie.  When I think about this scene (and I've been thinking about it a lot lately), I am reminded of Albert Camus' essay The Myth Of Sisyphus, where Camus recounts the well-known story of Sisyphus from Greek mythology.  Sisyphus is condemned to roll a stone up a hill forever in Hades as punishment.  As soon as the rock reaches the top of the hill, it inevitably rolls back down and Sisyphus has to repeat the task ad infinitum.  Camus compares the plight of Sisyphus to people's lives, which can similarly feel like an unending series of trials.  As bleak as this sounds, Camus insists it need not be.  He reminds us that when Sisyphus finally reaches the top of the hill, the rock must roll back downhill.  In this brief moment, Camus says, Sisyphus can find a modicum of happiness, and if he is diligent in his appreciation of it, he can make the rest of his toil worthwhile.  This is why Camus insists that we "must imagine Sisyphus happy."

I see this moment in Agnes' life as the equivalent of Sisyphus' respite while the rock rolls down the hill.  Just as Camus urges, Agnes is able to appreciate this moment in time for what it is, brief though it may be, and thus, hopefully, make all the suffering she is about to endure (which we are all too aware of) worthwhile.