Who's the savage?
I'm surprised to see nobody discussed the topic...
Maybe it is that obvious? Who do you think kills all these animals?
Someone external to the film's central characters is committing the crimes. Of this I am certain, mainly for aesthetic reasons. For one thing, this is not an Agatha Christie story. For another, the sinister unknown sadist sets the whole tone of the picture of 'unknown depths' in the characters themselves. We are at moments frightened by each of the four main characters - when Andreas beats Anna, the creepy letter from her dead husband with its sinister mention of physical violence gives us a fear of Anna herself, the architect's inhuman coldness and his wife's spiritual emptiness. Looking into each of these characters the viewer has a sense of vertigo.
sharePoet,
Nice way of putting it - this is not an Anna Christie story. Heh. No, it is not a whodunit. Trying to see it as such requires a total misundertanding of the film.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS
I feel certain that none of the four leading characters is the "savage."
I think the violence against animals is a parallel to the Vietnam War scenes and the scenes of Max von Sydow's gradual breakdown into a near-murderous rage.
I also think we're meant to see the irony that after a man's suicide, the animal cruelty continues.
Violence is one of the themes of "The Passion of Anna." I think it's an above average Bergman movie.
I'm surprised no one has picked up on one of the more subtle clues that it was probably Anna. At the end when Andreas stops her from riding the car into a tree like when she killed her husband and son, the jolt from suddenly stopping sends the little teddy bear hanging from the mirror into a spin and it looks as if the bear was hung to death.
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