[1] The audience is introduced to Andreas Winkelman, a man living alone and emotionally desolate after the recent breakdown of his marriage.

Anna has left her handbag behind and Andreas looks through it, finding and reading a letter from her husband that reveals that he is unhappy in their marriage and fearful for possible "psychological and physical violence".

Andreas takes the handbag to where Anna is living and is greeted at the door by the married couple, Eva and Elis, who are also in the midst of psychological turmoil.

Elis is an internationally successful architect and amateur photographer who has an extensive archive of portraits categorised according to emotional states.

She describes a dream of hers, which seems to follow the events of Shame, where she emerges on an island helpless, witness to the horrors of war.

Throughout the film, an unknown person on the island is committing acts of animal cruelty, hanging a dog in a tree and violently killing sheep.

He commits suicide and the police bring a letter to Andreas where the poor man describes how he was beaten and humiliated by a group of men, after which he did not wish to continue living.

One day Anna picks an argument with Andreas as he is chopping wood, causing him to lose control and, raising the axe, plunges it into the wooden wall close to her head.

When Andreas arrives he is told that the perpetrator has struck again, this time dousing a horse in petrol and locking it in and setting fire to the stable.

"[2] Author Jerry Vermilye wrote that in exploring "the thread of violence intruding on ordinary lives," Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame and The Passion of Anna represent a trilogy.

[4] Cohen-Shalev wrote that, like Persona and Shame, The Passion of Anna follows an "artist as fugitive" theme touching on issues of guilt and self-hatred.

Sam Jordison wrote for Film4, "While it lacks the lightness of touch and smooth flow that distinguishes Bergman at his finest, this is still a powerful, profound work of art.