Ingmar Bergman's Guests at the Last Supper in the time of nuclear threats

This article discusses the film Nattvardsgästerna (1963) – released in the U.S. as Winter Light, and in the U.K. as The Communicants – in the context of the Swedish post-war religious scene and Ingmar Bergman’s other productions of the period. The film is read theologically with an assumption that the author carries on a certain religious dialogue, whatever its form may be. With the basis of the film in the title, it asks about the meaning of the Lord’s Supper celebration and of the individual ‘guests’, i.e. the film’s main characters: Tomas Ericsson, Märta Lundberg and Jonas Persson. The article applies a comparative perspective to the relevant texts of the Old and (especially) New Testaments and includes pericopes and verses concerning the doubting Thomas, the biblical Martha and the prophet Jonah.