Bergman defines his principal theme as a concern with the "wholeness inside every human being." This "wholeness" is the basis upon which relationships with other human beings are formed. The fragmenting of wholeness within the self is inextricably bound up with the fragmenting of interpersonal relationships…. Cries and Whispers mirrors this desire to heal fragmentation between the self and others, and between separated elements in the individual psyche. (pp. 147-48)

Agnes's character is perhaps "incomplete" by literary standards, but here, we know as much about Agnes as is necessary to our understanding of the film's totality—she is dying, and she is, in an important thematic sense, a child.

She is also, in another sense, an artist who works in painting and literature, but primarily in the latter, through her "diary." Agnes is a type recognizable from Bergman's earlier films, the alienated artist, in this case separated from...