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: VISKNINGAR OCH ROP (Cries and Whispers) (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)

While filming THE TOUCH, Ingmar Bergman had a recurring idea: four women dressed in white in a large red room; he pursued it through his imagination and made it real in the unrelenting and powerful VISKNINGAR OCH ROP or CRIES AND WHISPERS.

Despite financing problems it won a Cannes jury prize and it's worldwide success culminated in the rare occurance of a foreign language film being nominated for five main Academy Awards, winning for Sven Nykvist's stunning cinematography.

In a large, nearly-empty family mansion, ornate clocks tick away Agnes' life as she slowly dies from cancer, watched over by her attentive maid Anna who mourns the death of her own daughter.

The only other occupants are Agnes' married sisters Katrin and Maria who have come to watch and wait...

The oppresive atmosphere conjours up unhappy memories in each sister; Agnes dies and the sisters let their polite masks drop...

Shelf or charity shop?  Haunting the shelf.  Even with Bergman's body of work the 50 year-old CRIES AND WHISPERS remains an unsettling, disturbing film with four extraordinary performances by the actresses he always envisioned playing the roles - although he actually originally wanted Mia Farrow as Anna the maid!  Kari Sylwan appeared in her first Bergman film playing Anna, the only one who shows any real love for Agnes.  His three other actresses each made 10 films with Bergman:  Harriet Andersson is astonishing as the dying Agnes (in her 8th Bergman role), Ingrid Thulin (in her 9th Bergman role) is icily disdainful as the emotionally dead Katrin - the scene where she cuts her vagina with a broken wine glass has lost none of it's horrific intensity - but the most complex role goes to the magnificent Liv Ullmann who delivers wonderfully.  In her 5th Bergman performance, Ullmann as Maria, whose beauty and sensuality covers an immature and petulant interior, is the one you always watch; in flashback she also plays the sister's mother, beautiful but remote.  Only at the end does Bergman allow a flash of happiness, all the more touching coming after all we have witnessed.

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...

 

 

Dvd/150: NATTVARDSGASTERNA (Winter Light) (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

With NATTVARDSGASTERNA, Bergman proudly felt he had got his ideas onto the screen without compromising for commercial appeal.

Bergman's dissection of the loss of faith takes place in 77 real-time minutes: everything's pared to the bone.

Pastor Tomas Ericsson holds a nearly-empty mass on a bleak November morning.  Attending are Marta, a teacher who is having an unhappy relationship with him, and married couple Jonas and Karin.  Tomas is visited later by the couple: pregnant Karin tells Tomas that Jonas is struggling with depression, scared that China is developing an atomic bomb.  Alone with Jonas, Tomas tells him he cannot help as he has lost his faith, believing God helps no one.

Afterwards, atheist Marta attempts to comfort Tomas but they hear Jonas has committed suicide...

Sven Nykvist's stunning cinematography and unsentimental performances from Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Max von Sydow and Gunnel Lindblom make Bergman's vision unforgettable.

Shelf or charity shop?  A difficult film to watch at times but for Bergman's humanist view of man alone in the world, this is one for the shelf...

 

 

Dvd/150: NARA LIVET (So Close To Life) (Ingmar Bergman, 1958)

Known as BRINK OF LIFE in the USA, this film won the Cannes Festival Best Actress award shared between Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson and Barbro Hiort af Ornas, as well as the Best Director award for Bergman.

Although the film has all the traps of soap-level drama, Bergman's rigorous and spare direction of Ulla Isaksson's script gives it a quiet intensity.

His four leads also keep emotions reigned in and all give memorable performances.  Thulin is Cecilia, a secretary who has had a miscarriage and recovers in a shared maternity room with two others, the irrepressibly happy Stina (Dahlbeck) who longs for her overdue baby and the withdrawn teenager Hjordis (Andersson) who has tried to abort hers.  They are cared for by Hiort af Ornas' caring Nurse Brita.

Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and Erland Josephson play hapless husbands but, once again, the director's actresses shine magnificently.

Shelf or charity shop?  For the wonderful actresses it's a definite keeper...