Existential anxiety, expectations of salvation and nostalgia for God in the cinematography of Ingmar Bergman

In this article, we will analyze from an existentialist-soteriological perspective three of Ingmar Bergman's cinematographic masterpieces, which are placed between the late fifties and the early sixties of the last century: Wild Strawberries (1957), Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Winter Light (1963). Our reflection will be accompanied by some fundamental questions. Is it possible to find expectations, or at least a nostalgia for salvation, starting from the existential anxiety of the protagonists of these films? Does their sense of nausea towards a life that seems to sink into the most distressing oblivion still leave a glimmer towards some light that can penetrate to restore hope? Is it possible to recognize a need for salvation from death and beyond death itself? We will try to show how the request for salvation declines first and foremost as salvation in this life through the search for interpersonal relationships, in the perspective of living for others and in the possibility of loving for free, in a constant struggle in the face of existential anxiety that seems to continue to loom and could still have the upper hand. Finally, when salvation is understood as stability in a life at the mercy of the waves of reality, it is recognized in the presence of God as warrant of the authenticity of every act and desire for love.