[Wakewalker]

There is something curiously wrong with this film. Curiously, because its story would be so terrifying if it actually happened, to anyone.

The movie, set during the Civil War, tells the story of how a couple, who are neutral to the war, find themselves apart of it. The suspense in the story lies in how psychologically, emotionally and physically harmed these two people will be because of it.

Ingmar Bergman is best known for his psychological, domestic dramas, and Shame is his big, disappointing leap into the outside world.

Bergman doesn't clue us into the reasons for the war (not a problem), nor does he portray one side more angelic than the other (definetly not a problem). What we know about the war is what the film's two characters know (which isn't much, and they realize this, and do not care).

By the end of the movie, one character does something extraordinarily uncharacteristic, which is probably Ingmar Bergman's way of presenting war's way of affecting us drastically.

My problem with the film is.... I don't really know. It wasn't the fact that Max von Sydow's character is unapologetically a wimp. Nor was it because Liv Ullmann's character is sort of like the man in the family. And it definetly had nothing to do with the performances.

Hmmm. I guess when you see it, you know it.

Shame (68) *