This is a noble attempt to shed light on a woman's inner struggle for existence. [02 Jul 2011, p.43]
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
It has a simple, straight cinematic form, unifying a little tangle of experience within a modest frame. It may strike one as slight and disappointing alongside the intellectual magnitude of such as his film "The Seventh Seal." But it suggests a new mood of its author—introspective, troubled, cold.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
A former mental patient and her family spend a summer on an isolated island, in a classic Bergman portrait where family dysfunction and existential terror meet. [31 Jul 2007, p.R1]
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
You can freeze almost any frame of this film and be looking at a striking still photograph. Nothing is done casually.
The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann
For the eye and for the spirit, it is a study in varying shades of gray.
The New York Times by Walter Goodman
The acting is finely modulated; Miss Andersson's flirtation with insanity is a ballet. And the austere beauty of Sven Nykvist's photography has an eloquence all its own.