I liked Cries and Whispers quite a lot. Sure, it was about depressed lives--but there was an acknowledgement of pure beauty in it. There are parts of that story--or those intertwined stories--that will never leave me though I haven't seen it in almost thirty years. Who could ever forget 'the tissue of lies' and yet the other dying woman's gift of the flower, a rose, I think. Liv Ullmann's fading beauty tinged with suspicion (or haunted hope)... It seemed (the movie) a kick to the consciousness that status quo values and behaviors can push people into little hells on earth, whether husbands and wives in loveless marriages or lovers in lustful yet loveless affairs. Maybe nothing new here--but that movie was cast in such a bounty of color and eye-awareness that Life breathed throughout it in a way that begged to be grasped. I can feel the sheets of the dying woman. That may sound depressed, but it isn't. Those sheets were clean and soft and white; and the woman who cared for the dying woman loved her.
