Bergman...Bergman...Bon Voyage

This month has been a month of mourning for Cinema...

First, we lost our great Taiwanese director Edward Yang, whose works I think needs no introduction...

Then, today, I heard on the radio that one of my most respected and beloved filmmaker/artist have just passed away peacefully in his home in Sweden...his name is Ingmar Bergman...

My mind quickly fell into Silence...then Persona...Through a Glass Darkly...Fanny and Alexander....Scenes from a Marriage...Cries and Whispers...The Seventh Seal...etc. all the great works that have left a very big impact on me as a cinephile and others worldwide...

It was Silence, which taught me that silence and solitude in film could be so 'heavy and loud'

It was Persona and Through a Glass Darkly, which brought me into the darker realm of filmic characters

It was Fanny and Alexander and Scenes from a Marriage, which showed me that stories made for Television could be equally, if not more, powerful than stories made for the big screen...(though Kieslowski did that for me too with Decalogue...)

And together with Sven Nykvist, one of the greatest Cinematographer, they had created some of the most stunning Black and White imagery ever to be projected on the silverscreen, showing us that life doesn't necessarily look better in color...

............ But unlike Edward Yang's death, however, Bergman's death did not arouse as much sadness in me...I guess the reason for that is because Edward Yang died at a rather early age of 50, whereas we all were expecting more great output from this director, especially after his award-winning Yi Yi. ..Bergman, on the other hand, is already 89 this year, and the news of him passing away peacefully in his own home with his family sounded much more like a well-rounded ending for such a prolific artists whose 60+ films he left behind will always remain, in mine and many other people's heart, as immortal works which shows the emotional power and artistic value of cinema as an artform...

I sincerely hope that someone will organize a comprehensive Bergman Retrospective in a city near you...

Bon Voyage....one of the greatest film director....Ingmar Bergman...

D....