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After Töre (Max von Sydow) is informed that his daughter Karin (Birgitta Pettersson) has been murdered, he heads out to chop down a young tree with his sword. However, in a fit of rage, he takes the tree down with his bare hands. Like Karin, the tree is brought down in the prime of its youth. Töre then uses the branches to flog himself as punishment, not for sins that he has committed, but for the sins he will commit when he exacts vengeance on his daughter’s killers.

One of most important elements of The Virgin Spring (1960) is the time period in which it is set. The 12th-century was an important time in the history of Sweden, as the reluctant transition from paganism to Christianity was in full swing. By this point Christianity was already being practiced in the Scandinavian region for centuries, and pagan practices were forced behind closed doors.

While Töre and his wife Märeta (Birgetta Valberg) are devout Christians, their servant Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom) secretly worships the Norse deity Odin, who is often associated with war and battle. This is in strong contrast to the new Christian virtues of forgiveness.

Since Töre decides to kill his daughter’s murders’ rather than forgive them, he clearly doesn’t follow through with his ingrained Christian morals, and feels as if he is reverting back to a more primal stage in our theological development.

While the scene’s deeper meaning can easily pass over the casual viewers head, it’s striking visual is impossible to ignore, as it was captured by the Academy Award winning cinematographer and longtime Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist (Cries and Whispers, Fanny and Alexander), who also garnered some mainstream success in the United States for his work on The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993).

Another example of this very particular situation occurs in The Wizard of Oz (1939) when Dorothy (Judy Garland), her little dog Toto, and the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) have an altercation with an apple tree, who becomes angry when they begin to pick at his by-products, and even more so when they express dissatisfaction with the goods.

Some notable horror films utilize this struggle as well, such as From Hell It Came (1957), The Evil Dead (1981), and Poltergeist (1982), all of which include a villainous wooden creature. There are also a few examples in comic book adaptations where plant life takes on a lead role, such as Poison Ivy (Uma Therman) in Batman & Robin (1997) and Groot (Vin Diesel) in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

While it may be more metaphorical than physical, Jack O’ Brian (Sean Penn) comes to terms with his own mortality in The Tree of Life (2011). But, perhaps the newest of these peculiar instances, which possibly even pays homage to Max von Sydow’s famous scene, occurs in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), when Max (Tom Hardy) uproots an age-old tree in order to pull his war rig out of the mud.

However, the most aesthetically and narratively compelling example remains Max von Sydow’s depiction of man’s never ending struggle with the forces of nature in one of Ingmar Bergman’s bleakest, but still most defining films.