A family gathering on Visit Your Relatives Day (USA)

“You must realize that today in Germany anything can happen, even the improbable, and it's just the beginning, Frederick. Personal morals are dead. We are an elite society where everything is permissible. These are Hitler's words. My dear Frederick, even you should give them some thought.”

– Aschenbach

The wealthy Von Essenbecks gather for a family dinner party. There is entertainment.

A mother for International Women's Day

 

When returning home to the castle he grew up in, Jan attempts to free himself from the suffocating clutches of his neurotic mother.

 

This film was the final straw for Shirley Temple; she resigned from the board of the San Francisco Film Festival calling Zetterling's film “pornography for profit”.

“I see what I see, and I know what I know. But nobody believes me.”

– Granny Vogler

– We're out of love potion. What now?

– Take this one, for colic and bunions. What matters is how the bottle looks and how the potion tastes.

#Sisters Ester and Anna arrive with Anna's son Johan in the small Central European town of Timoka. The country verges on the brink of war. Unwell Ester is confined to her hotel room, Anna roams Timoka's establishments, Johan wanders the hotel corridors.

“You need to watch your step among all the ghosts and memories.”

– Ester

It's hard to watch #Bergman's Tystnaden without #StanleyKubrick's ghosts sidling in. Tystnaden however doesn't need consternation to cause dread. The interaction and lack thereof between the three leads and the few extras translate into something merely tangible and evermore frightful.