Schreie und Flüstern
Critic Marco Lanzagorta wrote, "Undeniably, "Cries and Whispers" is a film about the world of women, and is very open in terms of the gender and sexual politics that it portrays". The story fits Bergman's motif of "warring women", seen earlier in "The Silence" and "Persona" and later in "Autumn Sonata" (1978). The film inspired essays about Bergman's view of women. Patricia Erens wrote, "Bergman's women in such films as "Persona" and "Cries and Whispers" are not simply objects of abuse, but creatures through whom Bergman can express his own subjective fears, his many frustrations and failures at preserving autonomy of self and control of reality".