Virgin Spring 05/18 Blu-ray (Rental)

Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. With austere simplicity, the director tells the story of the rape and murder of the virgin Karin, and her father Töre’s ruthless pursuit of vengeance, set in motion after the killers visit the family’s farmhouse. Starring frequent Bergman collaborator and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between paganism and Christianity. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Audio commentary from 2005 by Ingmar Bergman scholar Birgitta Steene • New video interviews from 2005 with actors Gunnel Lindblom and Birgitta Pettersson • Introduction by filmmaker Ang Lee from 2005 • An audio recording of a 1975 American Film Institute seminar by director Ingmar Bergman • Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack • PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by film scholar Peter Cowie and screenwriter Ulla Isaksson and the medieval ballad on which the film is based