poliphilo

We arrived at the Meeting House- and the Meeting House was cold. Was the heating system playing up again? But then a man in a dressing gown who rents one of the flats upstairs came barrelling in to ask if we knew what was going on. Ailz made the calls and it turned out there'd been a fire at an electricity sub station which had taken out the better part of two postal districts.

We had our Meeting, sticking it out- eight of us- in our overcoats- because you don't advertise a service and then cancel it without notice. In the words of Bishop Bergman, Ingmar's father, "Irrespective of everything, you will hold your communion."- a philosophy that is at the heart of the movie that in certain moods I think of as the greatest ever made- Winter Light- or more accurately, The Communicants- though this is a rare example of a translated title being more telling than the original.

Ingmar Bergman comments, "(Holding your communion) is important to the churchgoer, but even more important to you. We shall have to see if it is important to God. If there is no other god but your hope as such, it is important to that god too."