Lack Of Faith In Winter Light

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Winter Light is a peculiar film for a man like Ingmar Bergman to make. For the first hour and ten minutes, sure, it has everything you expect – it can be seen as similar to The Seventh Seal in the lack of God and idea of mortality portrayed. It is in Bergman’s Trilogy of Faith that this comes from, showing human relationships with God (or lack of relationship). The weird part of Winter Light comes in its ending, when the pastor is seen to have new faith. It was apparently during the making of this film that Bergman fully came to grips with his lack of faith, so his experiences doesn’t exactly mirror that of Tomas (who ends up accepting faith) in this masterpiece on the subject. It is perhaps relevant to mention how my experiences and feelings are somewhat very similar to that of the Pastor, Tomas, in this film. His confusion is something that I’m sure is not just personal to me, however. I am an atheist, but we all have doubts in our beliefs (including…show more content…
With Jonas, the depressed man anxious of something he read about China and atomic bombs, Tomas has nothing to say to help him when they meet at the church. He himself mentions how he could only “spout drivel”, such as “life must go on”. This of course leads to the silencing response by Jonas: “why do we have to go on living?”. The Pastor cannot answer his questions to help his suicidal thoughts, since he has no faith himself. How can he alleviate the suffering if he finds no God possible of doing so? Jonas commits suicide, and Tomas can do nothing to soothe the pain felt by his wife, and she knows it. When he offers condolences in the form of faith (reading The Bible), she refuses, and only wants to speak to him for funeral arrangements. It is in this moment, it is presumed, that Mrs Persson loses a lot of her faith; she sees the Pastor only as a workman doing mundane public services such as arranging
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