Winter Light

In the nearly empty chapel, Tomas prepares for a third service later in the day while Jonas and Karin linger. Jonas speaks of his morose mood after the unsettling news that China is developing an atomic bomb, which darkens Tomas’s sense of faith. Tomas offers a brief word of counsel and asks the couple to return after they’ve gotten Karin home.

Märta, Tomas's confidante, enters with quiet warmth and asks if he has read the letter she wrote. Tomas admits he hasn’t read it and opens up about a troubled memory of failing to help Jonas and a deeper doubt about whether he has anything left to offer. Märta declares her love, but hints Tomas may not love her in return, then exits as Tomas begins reading the letter.

The letter recounts Märta’s disfigurement and sense that neither Tomas’s faith nor his prayers healed her. She writes of a family warmth that existed without religion and questions Tomas’s indifference toward Jesus. Reading it, Tomas confronts a painful past where fear, pride, and the temptation to deny God masked human cruelty.

Tomas finishes the letter and falls asleep; when he wakes, Jonas has returned. Jonas offers counsel again, but the exchange dissolves into a stark confession: he too has no faith left and reveals that his faith was vanity. He admits he could not reconcile a loving God with the cruelties he witnessed and leaves with a heavier sense of loss.

Immediately after Jonas’s departure, Märta returns, buoyed by Tomas’s apparent release from faith. The widow Magdalena unexpectedly appears and informs them that Jonas has committed suicide with a rifle. Tomas drives alone to the scene and, with restrained, ceremonial calm, helps the police cover Jonas’s body with a tarp.

Märta arrives on foot and follows Tomas to her home, where she invites him to rest and take medicine for his cold. Inside her classroom, Tomas confronts her with a harsh truth: his anger toward her is born of gossip and the emotional weight she carries. He asserts that she could not compare to his late wife, a claim that shocks Märta but does not deter her from continuing to care for him.

Märta agrees to accompany Tomas back to the Perssons’ home, where Karin, upon hearing the news of Jonas’s death, collapses with fear for her children. Tomas offers only a perfunctory pledge to help and then leaves, the weight of events pressing on him. He moves toward the second church to face the afternoon’s quiet challenge.

Later that afternoon, Tomas arrives at the second church for the three o’clock service to find it nearly empty, with only Algot the handicapped sexton and Fredrik the organist in attendance. The emptiness sets a stark tone as the town’s doubt and isolation become palpable. The service is about to begin in a chamber of quiet resolve.

In the vestry, Algot ponders why the Passion emphasizes Jesus’s physical suffering when God’s silence on the cross may be worse. Tomas listens thoughtfully and agrees that silence resonates more deeply than wounds. The men reflect on whether any service should proceed under such emptiness.

Fredrik suggests Märta should leave town to escape rumor, but she resolves to stay and begin praying. She chooses to endure the gossip rather than abandon the town, signaling a stubborn spiritual commitment despite the questions surrounding the pastorate. The mood remains tense but determined.

The two men wrestle with whether a service should still be held if no one shows up. Tomas decides to proceed, and the bells toll to mark a solemn return to ritual. He begins the Sanctus, restoring a fragile rhythm to the town’s fragile faith.

The service unfolds with the bells tolling as Tomas, surrounded by emptiness, invites whatever truth may come. The scene ends with a pastor who has chosen to confront the absence rather than pretend it isn’t there. The town’s unanswered questions linger as the day closes.