1968年，在越南战争的白热化阶段，英格玛伯格曼制作了这部愤怒而绝望的电影，无站队无立场，旨在表达反战思想。早在1966年的《假面》中，伯格曼就在其中放入一组越南和尚自焚的电视画面，目的是达到震惊女演员的效果，从而使其拒绝讲话。而在这两年间，发生了什么变化，以至于他不再有任何立场？
电影《羞耻》没有给出答案。影片并不直接向观众灌输任何作者意图，它只负责展示人物的生活，而把决定权留给观众。两部电影均由丽芙·乌曼主演，她与伯格曼的合作多达9部，第一部就是《假面》。与她搭档的演员是马克斯·冯·叙多夫，从《第七封印》（1957）开始就在伯格曼的电影中出现。乌曼和冯·叙多夫【此处原文为伯格曼，应为作者笔误】扮演一对备受折磨的夫妻，他们在《豺狼时刻》和《安娜的情欲》同样也扮演了夫妻。从某个角度来说，这三部电影里的夫妻是一回事，改变的只是故事外壳。
影片中的他们都曾是交响乐团的音乐家，如今却住在一个岛上的风干小屋里，以耕作为生。屋里的东西似乎没有一样能用的，包括那台收音机，对于这场似乎永无休止的战争，他们只能听到一些流言。伊娃（乌曼）总在担心他们的生命安全，并且时常渴望能有一个孩子。而她的丈夫杨（冯·叙多夫）则自信战争不会波及到他们。直到有一天，他们的平静生活被打破。喷气飞机低空划过房子，跳伞飞行员被杀，敌方部队突袭盘问，以及另一方部队将其关押拷问（看似代表本地的部队，实则民心不再）。
夫妻俩被严厉地审问，一份窜改的伊娃受访视频让他们吃尽苦头。随后他们被送回家，却只能眼睁睁看着家园被恶意破坏。伊娃和上校发生了性关系（古纳尔·布约恩施特兰德，与伯格曼第一次合作是在1944年的电影《折磨》）。她这样做是为了救他们自己吗？或许，但很难说。但她的婚姻痛苦无常也是事实。上校走后不久即被敌对势力捉住，杨将那笔可能赎回上校的钱藏了起来，他这么做是为了惩罚他们的通奸吗？很难说他到底是否知道这件事。
所有这些（我已经忽略了很多细节）刻画出一对饱受摧残的夫妻，他们安宁的生活被撕碎，被迫进入一个恐怖而绝望的新世界。战争时刻考验着他们的人性，他们是谁，他们真正的感受又是什么。影片结尾众人淹没在茫茫无际的大海，随之镜头转向天空，其荒凉孤绝在伯格曼电影中实为少见。
《羞耻》被美国影评人协会评为年度最佳影片，在四十年后的今天却缺乏关注——相对于《假面》来说。如果他肯在影片中直接指射越南战争，或许该片能产生更深刻的影响。相反地，他对影评人将《假面》解读为反越战的做法感到不悦，尤其是仅仅因为其中的一个片段。应当说，《假面》所要表达的远远不止这些。在这部影片中，你会发现他刻意隔离外界信息，从而将关注点聚焦在人性上（正如他在神之沉默三部曲里做的那样）。这并不是意味着他变成了现实主义者或是传统的故事作者，而是证明他摆脱了意识形态的束缚。
意识形态是《羞耻》里的一个敌人，杨和伊娃遭到惩罚是因为他们被怀疑是敌对势力的支持者，但是影片没有显示任何关于战争的信息，发生在哪里，两方分别是谁以及他们各自代表什么。对于影片里那些被抓捕的平民而言，他们没有出路。杨和伊娃既不是另一方的支持者，也不是这一方的爱国者。在某种意义上，影片指射的是伊拉克战争中的普通平民——或者是任何你能对号入座的战争。
原文：
In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war, Ingmar Bergman made this angry and bleak film that was against all war, and argued that it didn't matter which side you were on. In 1966, in his "Persona," he had used the famous televised footage of a Vietnamese monk burning himself alive to shock an actress into ceasing all forms of speech. In the two years between, what had changed, so that he no longer took sides?
It is a question without an answer in "Shame," which does not deliver a message in any formal way, but simply offers people and their lives and leaves us to conclude what we choose. Both films star Liv Ullmann, his actress in nine films starting with "Persona." Her co-star is Max von Sydow, who had worked with Bergman since "The Seventh Seal" (1957). Ullmann and Bergman play a tortured couple, as they also do in "Hour of the Wolf" and "The Passion of Anna." In a strange sense, all three films are about the same couple; only their narrative changes.
They were once symphonic musicians. Now they live in a weathered house on an island, growing fruits and vegetables. Nothing in their house seems to work, including the radio, so they hear only distant rumors of a war that has been waged seemingly forever. Eva Rosenberg (Ullmann) is concerned with the danger to their lives and to her desire to bear children. Her husband Jan (von Sydow) believes the war will pass them by. Their serenity is interrupted by jet planes flying low over their house, the killing of a parachuting airman, the arrival of troops, their inquisition, and eventually their incarceration by the other side (which seems to be the local side, but loyalties are divided).
They are questioned harshly. A falsely doctored video of Eva is used against her. They are sent back to their home, only to witness its wanton destruction. Eva has sex with the colonel in charge (Gunnar Bjornstrand, who first worked with Bergman in a 1944 film he wrote, "Torment"). Does she do it to save them? Probably, but hard to say. Her own marriage is painfully uncertain. Later, Jan conceals money that could have bought the colonel's freedom from the other side. Does he do it to punish their adultery? Hard to say if he has actually witnessed it.
All of this (I have left out many details) paints a portrait of a couple torn from their secure lives and forced into a horrifying new world of despair, testing them both to discover who they really are what they really feel. The overwhelming concluding passages, interrupted by shots of the sky, are among the most desolate Bergman ever filmed.
"Shame" was named best film of the year by the National Society of Film Critics, but is not much talked about 40 years later--certainly not in comparison with "Persona." It might have made a greater impact if he'd made it specifically about Vietnam, but I believe he was unhappy that "Persona" had been decoded by critics as being against that war, all because of one image; it was about, and against, a great deal more. In this film you can see him shifting away from message and toward the close regard of human behavior and personality (as in his "Silence of God" trilogy). That did not turn him into a realist or a conventional storyteller, but it freed him from ideology.
Ideology is one of the enemies in "Shame." Jan and Eva are punished because they are suspected of being "sympathizers," but the film lacks any information about where it takes place, who the two sides are, and what they stand for. To a civilian caught in the middle, there is no way out. Jan and Eva are not sympathizers for the other side, but neither are they patriots for this side. In a sense, the film could be about the ordinary non-combatant people of Iraq--or, pick your war.
"Shame" is available on DVD, alone or packaged with "Hour of the Wolf" and "The Passion of Anna."
