Scene Progression and Equilibrium Restoration

This week I want to look at the temporal movement of scenes in Igmar Bergman’s “Virgin Spring” to show how these conditions ultimately interact to form an axis mundi. The film begins early one morning with bitter Ingeri tending daily chores and ends a little over 24 hours from this scene. Approximately a days worth of events takes place in an hour and half long film, but I don’t know if I can declare whether the pace was slow or fast. Unlike “Passion of Joan of Arc,” the director does not linger on facial expressions, but instead covers a sequence of significant events that cause a family to consider both their relationship with the sacred and with the profane. Bergman highlights action, and its corresponding reaction, which is why I am choosing plot for this film.

            A few foreshadowing events occur in the introductory scenes of the film. First, as Ingeri sets up the fire in the morning she wedges a long, sturdy pole between the floor and roof hatch. 

This shot establishes the homestead as an axis mundi, a break in the chaos and the homogeneity of space. This fixed point allows the habitants to “acquire orientation in the chaos of homogeneity” (Eliade 23)—as a side note, I am struggling to interpret the importance of her call to God Odin; considering the way she is treated by her conspecifics, it seems logical that she has a God different from the others, but does this mean that her axis mundi differs from the others? Another foreshadowing event occurs when Mereta talks of an evil dream concerning the fate of her daughter Karin. We are not given any details, but just a limbo-like feeling of uncertainty that can only be realized with the progression of time.

           

Now that this reference point has been established, Karin must embark on her pilgrimage, the journey “to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion” (Turner 197), and deliver the virgin candles to the churches, which are further described as “high as heaven—built of stone, not wood.” This description of the church fits that of an axis mundi, with the stone construction resembling that of a mountain that fastens the underworld with the heavens. Karin adorns herself in preparation for her involuntary (what implications are there for obligatory pilgrimages vs. voluntary?) pilgrimage from one axis mundi to another, of which she will need to travel across chaos. The contrast between the fixed point and relativity of space allows us to infer characteristics about the profane versus that of the sacred. First, the profane takes place in the wilderness, which consists of broken branches, free-flowing waters, and non-roosting birds. To verify that the wilderness symbolizes the profane, I think Ingeri’s fearful cry, “the forest is so black,” suggests the forest is void of light, unknown, and thus lacking order. On the contrary, Karin’s home contains organized farm animals, gated buildings, and a little community of people. The forest lacks community and structure, and provides a habitat for vagabonds and, evidently, rapists, murderers, and thieves. Significant actions take place in the forest, as opposed to tiny actions regarding daily chores and the like. For example, Karin, the virgin on a pilgrimage, is raped after sharing provisions with some strangers and then clubbed to her death. It is not entirely clear as to why rape and murder was necessary if all the men needed were supplies; however, this uncertainty is characteristic of chaos and the lack of order.

The following scenes illustrate a disequilibria between the sacred and profane, such that the profane has not only dented the sacredness of the pilgrimage, but it now literally knocks at the gate of the axis mundi. The following scenes progress in a way that reinstates the previous equilibrium: first the profane must be eliminated from the premises; second, a new space must be consecrated to counteract the profane acts taken upon Karin. This is exactly what we see as Karin’s Father slaughters the three vagabonds and announces his plan to build a stone church over the body of his dead daughter. An important detail in this story is the death of Karin. Had she survived, she would have been Ingeri: a once pure maiden who was deprived of her innocence via rape and forced to bare the community’s ridicule. Instead, her death justifies retaliation and gives credibility to her suffering. The film starts post-Ingeri rape and pre-Karin rape to show us the response towards the living raped versus the murdered and raped, perhaps emphasizing the importance of death/sacrifice in the creation of new axis mundis.

Death appears to be a requirement for the consecration of space. 

For the sake of conversation, are there any comments about the contrast between the theoretically “merciful” God and the consistently merciless people?