The Virgin Spring is a 1960 film set in medieval Sweden about a virgin girl who is brutally raped and her father’s revenge on the men who commit the crime. The film is directed by Ingmar Bergman and written by Ulla Isaksson who adopted the script from a Swedish ballad called Töres döttrar i Wänge ("Töre's daughters in Vänge"). The film stars Max Von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom, and Birgitta Pettersson.
They have several encounters along the journey. They meet an old man in a shack who worships the pagan God Odin. The lecherous old man offers Ingeri her heart’s desire in exchange for sex and Ingeri--conflicted by her hatred and jealousy towards Karin--manages to resist his offer. Karin, on the other hand, sees the world through rose-colored glasses and perceives no threat from Ingeri, the forest, or any of the ominous-looking men they encounter. Somehow, Ingeri and Karin separate and 3 herdsmen--2 men and a boy--spot Karin alone. She offers them some of her food and they guide her and her white horse off the path.
Christian symbolism is expressed throughout The Virgin Spring. Karin switches back and forth between playing Christ and the fall of Mankind. In the beginning, Karin’s father, Tore, is accused by his wife of spoiling their daughter. The question is why would an over-protective father send his pure, virgin, inexperienced daughter into such a dangerous and unpredictable world? This fits with the Biblical story of God sending Christ into the world. Also notice that Karin’s horse is white coinciding with goodness. And also note that she offers the herdsmen some of her bread. In the Last Supper, Christ compares his body to bread and tells his disciples to eat it. In the same sense as bread, Karin is consumed by the herdsmen who rape and kill her. Also, the trail itself represents God’s way and when Karin--now switching from the role of Christ to the role of Mankind--strays from “the path,” the fall of mankind follows.
Ingeri switches back and forth between playing Adam, Cain, and Mankind’s redemption. In the role of Adam, Ingeri partakes of the forbidden fruit of lust by becoming a promiscuous woman. This is why her face, hands, and clothes look dirty; even her horse looks dirty compared with Karin’s white horse. This physical contrast between her and Karin is crucial in understanding why the film is called The Virgin Spring. Remember, virginity is associated in the mind with cleanliness and you cannot wash off dirt with dirty water. Ingeri, being the embodiment of Man’s downfall, is dirty with sin, sin that can only be redeemed with the blood and clean water of Karin who is innocent and Christ-like. This explains why Ingeri-- at no other time in the film --makes no attempt to clean the dirt from her hands and face. Remember, she has the chance to wash the dirt off herself in the brook running under the old man’s shack in the woods; she doesn’t because the water under the old man’s shack is polluted with lust and the envy she bears against Karin. Only at the spring that breaks out under Karin’s dead body does Ingeri washes the dirt off of her face and--in doing so--is redeemed and born again by the blood of an innocent. This analogy between Karin and Christ is magnified by Karin clutching a lamb (representing Christ) prior to being raped and murdered by the herdsmen. Revenge, justice, paganism, guilt, the dangers of ignorance, and existentialism round out the film’s other complex themes.
The Virgin Spring plays out like a poem and I rank it with The Seventh Seal that Bergman directed 3 years earlier. I must warn you though, the rape scene is graphic and shocking despite the fact that this film has been out for almost 60 years. It won the Academy Award For Best Language Film, a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and a Special Mention Award at Cannes. The Virgin Spring is among the best examples of Bergman’s powers as a visual storyteller, again with the assistance of longtime collaborators, cinematographer Sven Nykvist and editor Oscar Rosander. As usual, Janus and Criterion did an excellent job on this film. Bergman’s early black and white films were short compared to the color films he made later such as Fanny and Alexander (5 hours and 12 minutes) and Scenes From A Marriage (4 hours and 40 mins); The Virgin Spring, by comparison, is only 89 minutes. Time flies watching any of Bergman’s films which is why he is my favorite director.
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