Dark was the night, only the sound of the frogs and nightingales were broadcasted through the cold air after the rain washed away my town. Rain, lightning, and thunder had put everyone else to sleep. I found myself still awake, snuggling under my thick blanket, trying to protect my skin from the chilly atmosphere. Consumed by loneliness, seized by doubts, gripped by fear, smothered by anxiety. In moments like that I was hoping for a calling, patiently waiting for something to ring. Yet, there was only silence. All my senses witnessed was mere muteness which only highlighted the absence as it became more transparent, though my primitive instinct was not ready to surrender.

Of course I’m not the only one who ever feels that way. Ingmar Bergman had brilliantly summed up this kind of struggle in Winter Light. At the beginning we saw a communion with all its ritual. Then after that communion had ended a couple of husband and wife came to meet the pastor. The wife spoke to the pastor on behalf of her husband, since the husband seemed resistant to talk about his problem. The husband, Jonas, had been depressed. He was overwhelmed by the news about the Chinese with their hatred and seemingly inevitable atom bombs in the future. Jonas refused to talk by being quiet so his wife suggested that he should come back later alone to talk about his problem more freely. The pastor, Tomas, waited for quite a while before Jonas came back. When he did the pastor told Jonas about his own insecurities and battle with God’s silence.

Listen, Jonas. I’m going to be frank with you. You know my wife died four years ago. I loved her. My life was over. I’m not afraid to die, and there was no reason for me to hang on. But I did. Not for my own sake, but to be of some use. I had great dreams once. I was going to make my mark on the world. The sort of ideas you have when you’re young. I knew nothing of evil or cruelty. When I was ordained, I was as innocent as a baby. Then everything happened at once. I was a seaman’s pastor in Lisbon during the Spanish Civil War. I refused to see what was going on. I refused to accept reality. My God and I resided in an organized world where everything made sense. You see, I’m no good as a clergyman. I put my faith in an improbable and private image of a fatherly god. One who loved mankind, of course, but me most of all. Do you see, Jonas, what a monstrous mistake I made? An ignorant, spoiled and anxious wretch makes a rotten clergyman. Picture my prayers to an echo-god who gave benign answers and reassuring blessings. Every time I confronted God with the realities I witnessed… he turned into something ugly and revolting. A spider God, a monster. So I sought to shield Him from life, clutching my image of Him to myself in the dark.

Perhaps Tomas did that so that Jonas would find him relevant and relatable. But instead, his words backfired. It didn’t help, it only validated the purposelessness of life. And for those who are not ready to accept the reality that life is vacant of any meaning and purpose, it becomes so unendurable and hopeless that to end it is the way to be free of it. Jonas took his own life using a rifle, his pregnant wife was left alone with his three children. Although to think that God and evil, cruelty, violence, hatred exist simultaneously is even more horrid for me. It’s as if God chooses to be silence and ignorant of all our sufferings. Does He really intent to leave our prayers unanswered to test us? A being with so much compassion and mercy let his creatures hurt each other, destroying the planet, are too devastating. But still, despite the absurd, I can’t kill God within me.

But at the end of the movie, Bergman invited us to reflect and sympathize with Jesus Christ. That his pain was not only physical, but he was also tormented by his own doubts during the last moment of his life. He asked God why He had forsaken him. Even Jesus once felt the silence of God, he thought his heavenly father had abandoned him.

Beyond the story of faith and doubt, this movie also narrated the pain of an unrequited love. Marta was in love with Tomas but he hadn’t moved on from his wife. The day his wife died, he died also inside. It was painful to watch Marta threw herself along with her vulnerability at Tomas when he found her repugnant. She tried her best not too seem needy but still came off as clingy. Marta’s love and affection for Tomas were rejected stone cold.