Film Screening: THE VIRGIN SPRING/JUNGFRUKÄLLAN

Ingmar Bergman: A Tribute in Film continues with The Virgin Spring(1960), winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. Starring frequent Bergman collaborator and screen icon Max von Sydow, this film about a father’s need to avenge the death of his child, set in 14^th-century Sweden, depicts a world teetering between paganism and cruelty, in ways both beautiful and cruel.

A rare Bergman film written by someone else — the novelist Ulla Isaksson, from a folk ballad titled The Virgin Spring —the movie was also inspired by Bergman’s viewing of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. It was the inspiration behind many future films, including Wes Craven’s first feature film, The Last House on the Left.