DVD/150: SMULTRONSTALLET (WILD STRAWBERRIES) (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

Ingmar Bergman followed his masterpiece DET SJUNDE INSEGLET (THE SEVENTH SEAL) with another, the wonderful SMULTRONSTALLET (WILD STRAWBERRIES).

As the old doctor who reviews his unhappy life while travelling to receive a university honour, Bergman cast the silent film director Victor Sjostrom who gives an astonishing performance.

Although Bergman had directed Sjostrom eight years earlier, he found Strostrom more frail and frustrated at his failing memory; co-star Ingrid Thulin agreed to insist it was her fault if one of their scenes together went wrong.

Troubled by unsettling dreams of mortality. Dr. Isak Borg travels by car to receive a lifetime achievement award from his old university.  He is accompanied by daughter-in-law Marianne who admits that, like most people including his son, Borg is considered aloof and unlikeable.

A visit to his childhood summer home reawakens memories of his love for his cousin Sara, who married his brother.

Shelf or charity shop?  Well it IS part of a cracking Bergman box-set...  but even if on it's own, it's one to keep as it's Bergman at his most haunting and masterful. Helped immeasureably by Erik Nordgren's score and the poetic cinematography of Gunnar Fischer, it's a film to get lost in.  As I said Sjostrom, in his last film, is remarkably in almost every scene but is wonderfully restrained so his final show of emotion seems unsurprisingly natural.  He is supported by some of Bergman's favourite actors - Gunnel Lindblom appears as Borg's sister in flashback, Max von Sydow is a garage attendant who remembers Dr Borg as a caring local doctor, Gunnar Bjornstrand is Borg's son slowly turning into an unemotional shell like his father while Ingrid Thulin is excellent as Marianne, hiding her own secret from her father-in-law.  Bergman's relationship was ending with Bibi Andersson but he shines a spotlight on her talent by casting her in two key roles: luminous in flashback as Borg's beloved cousin who he loved from afar and, in the present day, as the free-spirited young girl who hitch-hikes a ride with her two lovers from Borg and Marianne; seeing the young trio begins the thaw in Borg's heart. By avoiding the inherent sentiment - just think of all the Hollywood films where a crotchety old man finds 'redemption' - Bergman makes WILD STRAWBERRIES universal.

Dvd/150: JUNGFRUKALLÄN (The Virgin Spring) (Ingmar Bergman, 1960)

The first Bergman film to win the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, he later disparaged it as a bad attempt at copying Kurosawa, however it remains intensely powerful.

Medieval farmer Töre lives with his pious wife Märeta and indulged daughter Karin.  Töre asks Karin to take candles to a faraway church; dressed in her best clothes Karin leaves accompanied by surly, pregnant maid Ingeri.  Pagan Ingeri dislikes Karin and offers prayers to Odon to make her suffer.

Ingeri is scared by an old man in the woods so Karin continues alone; she is stopped by two goatherds and their younger brother and she requests they share her food. She slowly realizes their intent but they rape her, killing her afterward.

That night the rapists ask for shelter at Töre's house which he allows while Märeta worries about Karin.  But when they offer Karin's clothes as payment, Töre exacts revenge...

Shelf or charity shop?  The Virgin Spring resides in my storage box of coverless DVDs.  I will keep it for the power of Bergman's direction, Sven Nykvist's glorious b/w cinematography and the performances of Max von Sydow as Töre - only 31 years old when it was filmed - Gunnel Lindblom's earthy Ingeri and Birgitta Pettersson as doomed Karin.  Amazingly, it was the inspiration for Wes Craven's notorious THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.

 

Dvd/150: TYSTNADEN (The Silence) (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

Ingmar Bergman wanted to make a film with no dialogue but capitulated during filming however TYSTNADEN still only contains about 37 lines of text.

It serves the film's study of alienation: sisters Ester and Anna, are travelling home after a journey abroad with Anna's young son Johan,  They are travelling during an oppressive heatwave through a country in the middle of a military coup.

External tensions match the internal... Ester has a consumptive illness and is fading, while Anna is losing patience with her assumed role of carer.  They stop off in an un-named town, staying in a faded grand hotel.

Bored, Anna ventures into the noisy city, wordlessly picking up a waiter.  Her son Johan wanders the gloomy corridors, as lonely as his mother and aunt.  The uneasy sibling relationship shatters that night...

Searing performances from Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom and young Jorgen Lindstrom illuminate the gloom.

Shelf or charity shop?  Not the easiest film to experience but this third in Bergman's loose trilogy on "God's silence" is a keeper...