The great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman has died at 89.
A good age, and he was active until the end, so no sorrow, not in this world. Whether the beyond is the bleak, godless hell he so dreaded and feared, or something more benign, he will have discovered by now.
Bergman's reputation is not what it once was, but his work still stands. Watch The Seventh Seal and be surprised by its wit, watch Wild Strawberries and be humbled by its wisdom, watch Through A Glass, Darkly or Winter Light or Cries And Whispers and...well, okay, those will just depress you. But it's a very human (if not quite humane) depression, a despair we have all known.
There was joy in Bergman's world, sometimes mixed with fear and sorrow (as in Fanny And Alexander), sometimes pure--his film of The Magic Flute is surely one of the most purely pleasurable things you will ever see.
His time here was well-spent, and these things he has left behind will be enough.
