In En Passion, what is unshown is as important as what is shown. Bergman doesn’t do anything by chance. Anna screams through her nightmare, but it’s Andreas’ reaction that we see on screen: we see his curiosity, or anguish, and we feel her pain without seeing her face. Bergman drifts away from a more conventional way of filming, portraying, and editing emotions. He’s not afraid to break the normal logic by not filming the person who’s speaking, or doing huge ellipsis. How did Andreas and Anna get together? This crucial part of their relationship is left to our imagination. We’re immersed in medias res in their relationship.

Bergman breaks both the form and the narrative, to produce something outside of conventions. It is not always easy to follow and keep up with what’s going on. You might feel a bit lost. You’re not used to lacking information. You will have to imagine certain aspects, or not if you don’t mind a few gaps in the storyline.

A precious element of Bergman’s cinema: he mostly focuses the camera on one character at a time. Even (and especially) during dialogues. Instead of focusing on giving each actor the same amount of screen time, Bergman allows us to have an in-depth insight on each protagonist, to feel their emotions. This movie is about passion. It’s about destruction. About the absurdity of life. About cheating and lying. About the death of a loved one, but also your own death. The death of oneself from the love they’re trying to share with someone else. The death of Andreas because he tried to force a romance with Anna, romance that was never there.