Bergman wasn't stuffing around with his themes at this stage: God, love, the meaning of life, suicide. Gunnar Bjorstrand is a priest who is over it all - sick of God, his declining bunch of parishioners, life, work, everything... Nerdy Ingrid Thulin loves him but he's sick of her, parishoner Max Von Sydow wants some help dealing with the horror of the world but the priest can't so it so he kills himself, Thulin throws herself at him but he tells her to get stuffed, and the organist gets a bit tipsy and the hunchbacked assistant goes on about Jesus.
It's talky yet there are some visually striking sequences such as Thulin's long monologue to camera and seeing von Sydow's dead body and Thulin praying at the end. Bjorstrand's casting in the lead as opposed to vin Sydow means he's even more humourless. And I found it surprisingly gripping - it plunges head on into some big issues, it feels true, it packs a punch.
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