Category: Ingmar Bergman

Wild Strawberries (1957)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 31min

Within the first ten minutes of Wild Strawberries, a surreal nightmare unfolds in the mind of Professor Isak Borg, prompting a sudden shift in his travel plans. The empty city streets he anxiously wanders are blown out in high-contrast monochrome, blinding us with the glare of white pavement and dissolving shadows into inky voids. A clock without hands marks the timelessness of this dream space, but also warns of Isak’s own impending death. Time is running out. A man with a seemingly painted-on, scrunched-up face melts into a dark liquid, and a driverless carriage led by charcoal-coloured horses topples over, tossing a coffin out onto the road. Inside, Isak finds himself. He wakes with terror, and a mysterious new resolution – he will not take a plane to the ceremony where he will be receiving the honorary degree of Doctor Jubilaris that evening. Instead he will drive, and with his daughter-in-law Marianne in tow, he sets out on a physical and spiritual journey of self-reckoning.

Bergman delves into surrealism in Wild Strawberries in a way he had never done before. The over-exposed photography of the professor’s unsettling dream sequence is a brilliant wordless sequence, sinking him into an existential terror of his own mortality.

This existential search for life’s answers makes for a fascinating companion piece to the other Ingmar Bergman film that came out in 1957, The Seventh Seal, with both marking a new trajectory in his career towards more philosophically minded films. Their combined success also venerated him internationally as a filmmaker not to be underestimated, and there may even be a passing of the torch here from one acclaimed Swedish director to another in his casting of Victor Sjöström. Though Bergman had previously used him in To Joy as a supporting character, he is front and centre here as the elderly physician facing up to his troubled past and unsettling future, reflecting on them with sorrowful dissatisfaction. Despite his professional achievements, Isak is a man who has steadily distanced himself from those he once held dearest, and over the course of this road trip each arrive back into his life in the most unexpected ways.

This predominantly takes place through the bleeding together of dreams, memories, and symbols, drifting by on the powerful current of Bergman’s poetic screenplay. “The day’s clear reality dissolved into the even clearer images of memory that appeared before my eyes with the strength of a true stream of events,” Isak eloquently contemplates, as Bergman quite literally dissolves the barriers between his material and psychological worlds via his graceful scene transitions. When the professor rests against the car window and considers “something overpowering in these dreams that bored relentlessly into my mind,” his voiceover is visualised with a slow fade into the past, sending a murder of crows flying across his sleeping head.

One of the film’s finest compositions arrives in this long dissolve, send a flock of crows flying across Isak’s head as we slip into his dreams.

It is especially his visit to the summer house he visited throughout the first twenty years of his life that opens the floodgates of nostalgia, playing out his romance with the beautiful Sara who would eventually marry his brother, Sigfrid. While everyone else around Isak in these flashbacks is young, Sjöström continues to play Isak as his older self, fully inhabiting his own memories. As his white-clad peers gather and pray around a table in preparation for dinner, Bergman’s camera tracks forward into the room through a dark doorframe, and Sjöström lingers shamefully on the shadowy edges in his black attire, clearly set apart from these days of romantic idealism. In the present, Isak can’t help but draw comparisons between his old sweetheart and a hitchhiker similarly named Sara – and apparently neither can we, given that both iterations are flanked by rivalling suitors and played by frequent Bergman collaborator Bibi Andersson.

A doorway opening from darkness into the light, visually drawing a threshold between Isak’s present self and his past.
Bibi Andersson plays two roles in Wild Strawberries, both called Sara and both mirrors of each other. It isn’t just an impressive performance from her – it is a great piece of formal characterisation from Bergman too.

She isn’t the only modern surrogate calling back to Isak’s past either. When he picks up Sten and Berit, a married couple with a broken-down car, their mutual resentment reminds him of his own relationship with his late wife. It is a miracle that Bergman’s early scenes of Isak and Marianne alone in the front seat are so visually engaging with their piercing deep focus, but it is when he fills the car to the brim that the genius of his blocking is truly revealed, forming layered representations of Isak’s past and present. Right in the back we find Sara and her two men, calling back to his adolescence. In the middle seats, Sten and Berit’s bickering continues to fill him with raw regret over his marriage, and leaves everyone else to sit in awkward silence. And there in the front driver’s seat right by his side is Marianne, his sole connection to his estranged son, Evald.

Bergman’s blocking and marvellous depth of field serves more than just his stark aesthetic. There is so much information conveyed a single shot here, representing different layers of Isak’s memories across each row of car seats.

Gunnar Björnstrand makes minimal appearances in this role, but there are definitive resemblances between his and Sjöström’s performances, both being cynical, irritable men who care little for their wives. Clearly the sins of the father have been passed onto the son and perhaps even amplified, as Evald is quick to cut down Marianne’s desire to bear children. “Yours is a hellish desire to live and to create life,” he heartlessly proclaims in her flashback, sitting in the exact same car seat that Isak is in now. “I was an unwanted child in a hellish marriage.” To look back at this family history from the other direction, it is clear that Isak may have inherited the same prickly attitude from his own parents too – specifically his mother, who Marianne describes as “cold as ice, more forbidding than death.” During his short visit to her along the road trip, she hands him the gold watch that his father used to own, which in a disturbing turn of events is revealed to not have any hands much like those of his dream.

We cut between the present and the past in this car, and just in his staging Bergman draws comparisons between Isak and his estranged son.

Bergman had certainly dabbled in magical realism before, but surrealism as concentrated as this is new for him in 1957, penetrating the depths of his protagonist’s mind in such ways that can only be felt via absurd, impressionistic imagery. In a law court preside over by the quarrelling husband Sten, Isak is forced to read nonsense on a blackboard that he is informed translates to “A doctor’s first duty is to ask for forgiveness.” He stands charged of being incompetent, as well as many minor offences including “callousness, selfishness, ruthlessness,” each brought against him by his wife who is deceased in the reality, yet lives on in his mind. A rippling reflection in a dark pond bridges one dream world to the next, where he finds a memory of his wife carrying out an affair in the forest, and contemplating his impassive reaction back home when she eventually tells him of her infidelity. Soon, she and her consort disappear without a trace, and Sten becomes a dark reflection of Isak’s subconscious, considering the doctor’s meticulous method of emotional detachment.

“Gone. All are gone. Removed by an operation, Professor. A surgical masterpiece. No pain. Nothing that bleeds or trembles. How silent it is. A perfect achievement in its way, Professor.”

Perhaps he would have found more satisfaction in the university’s ostentatious ceremony the previous day, but now as he accepts his certificate and listens to speeches, there is a strange emptiness to the routine proceedings. Is this the legacy he has made for himself?

We can always expect an array of marvellous compositions in Bergman’s dream sequences, catching the light of reflections in a rippling pond and often obstructing the camera.

With his manifestations of old memories in his current reality though also comes second chances for all those still alive. “I can’t live without her,” Evald confesses to his father, resolutely deciding to stay by Marianne’s side through the birth of their child. Through his newfound appreciation of his daughter-in-law, he also uncovers the dormant love for his own wife that he never showed during her life. Such are the power of dreams in Wild Strawberries, mulling through decades of nostalgic and shameful memories to reveal greater truths about oneself. By turning Isak’s car into the vessel through which he navigates such fantasies too, Bergman grounds them all in a robust visual metaphor. As the elderly professor now drifts off to sleep though, his face is not tormented by dark musings, but lightened by a gentle peace. “If I have been worried or sad during the day, it often calms me to recall childhood memories,” his mind echoes, before finally slipping away into worlds untouched by bitterness and regret.

A final escape into Isak’s dreams, though this time there is much greater peace in his resignation.

Wild Strawberries is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 36min

Across the withering forests, squalid villages, and draughty castles of 14th century Sweden, there is resounding silence. It echoes through Ingmar Bergman’s sparse minimalism, emerging not from the peasants who dance and sing as distraction from their grim circumstances, nor from the religious zealots who preach portentous warnings of Judgment Day. It doesn’t even come from Death himself, who stalks the land and takes lives without discrimination. This silence belongs to an absent God, whose apparent withdrawal from His own creation brings omens of an unavoidable reckoning. Drawn from the Book of Revelations, the verse which opens this meditation on faith sets the scene for Bergman’s theological questions, leading us towards the end times with a pained longing for answers.

“And when the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour… And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.”

From this biblical quote also comes the title Bergman gives his film, The Seventh Seal, marking its events as the final catalyst for the Apocalypse. Seemingly every character from the cynics to the Christians acknowledges the dismal shift in the air too, as they spread rumours of supernatural occurrences and fearfully evade the Black Death.

Death, pestilence, madness, and torture infest the land in The Seventh Seal, and Bergman’s austere photography reflects that in its impeccable staging.

It isn’t hard to see why The Seventh Seal held immense cultural significance at the time of its release, speaking to audiences of 1957 who anticipated a nuclear winter during the early years of the Cold War. From a spiritual perspective though, it connects even more distinctly to Bergman’s own repressed upbringing as the son of a strict Lutheran minister. This did not inspire a rebellious attitude in him, but rather an instinct for curiosity, prompting him to search for traces of God in a world simultaneously obsessed with and disconnected from His holy virtues.

It makes sense then that Bergman gives his own philosophical quandaries in The Seventh Seal to disenchanted knight Antonius Block, played by Max von Sydow with intelligence, sorrow, and a desperate glimmer of hope. Having returned from the Crusades, Block is no stranger to serving the Catholic Church, and yet he has not found the spiritual fulfilment that was promised. “My life has been a futile pursuit, a wandering, a great deal of talk without meaning,”he laments, “But I will use my reprieve for one meaningful deed.” And yet where can one find such a purpose, if not from God?

Max von Sydow is served well by an all-time great script, but it takes a talented actor with a firm handle on such profound material to do it justice.

This paradox underlies Block’s journey in The Seventh Seal, driving him to seek wisdom from a mad woman who claims to have consorted with the Devil, as well as a priest who, as he eventually discovers, is in fact Death in disguise. When the knight first meets this mysterious, pale-faced entity on a rocky shoreline, he is told his time is up, and yet he is not ready. “My flesh is afraid, but I am not,” he confesses, before challenging Death to a game of chess – the stakes being his own life. Bergman pensively returns to this rich allegorical conceit throughout the film, with Death outsmarting Block at virtually every turn, and as such a timer is effectively placed on the knight’s uncertain quest to find meaning before his adversary checkmates him.

The first actors who should be praised for their work in The Seventh Seal are Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstand, and Bibi Andersson – but Bengt Ekerot’s literal embodiment of Death has become an icon in pop culture for good reason.
The chess game that unfolds between Antonius Block and Death is a symbol of fate and futility, and Bergman uses it as a superb frame here for the knight’s travelling companions in the background.

Bergman’s indelible iconography is woven all through The Seventh Seal, and yet it is this infamous image of von Sydow challenging Death which effectively escaped its niche corner of world cinema and spread into mainstream culture at large. Though Bergman clearly identifies with the doubtful knight, perhaps he also sees a bit of himself in the church painter, who the cynical squire Jons finds illustrating a large fresco depicting the Dance of Death. “I’m only painting things as they are. Everyone else can do as he likes,” he explains, handing the power of interpretation over to viewers of his work.

Theological questions are on Bergman’s mind, taking visual form in this exquisite composition that von Sydow walks into early on.

For as long as the artwork remains in Bergman’s hands though, he is a perfectionistic craftsman, painstakingly shaping his blocking and lighting into expressions of profound wonder, and instilling his austere imagery with a razor-sharp depth of field. In close-ups and mid-shots, he studies the expansive emotional range that crosses his ensemble’s faces as they confront their impending deaths with terror, confusion, anger, and awe. In wides as well though, he imposes a stark, greyscale beauty on his medieval scenery, confining these characters to barren lands upon which nothing fruitful can grow.

Blocking faces is right in Bergman’s wheelhouse, and The Seventh Seal bears some of his strongest compositions in this aspect, turning them at angles, staggering them through his depth of field, and obstructing them with his mise-en-scène.

Everywhere that Block goes with his steadily growing band of companions, a disconcerting rot eats away at the minds and bodies of the common people. In one scene that has taken root in pop culture (most prevalently through Monty Python and the Holy Grail) a comical performance by jesters is interrupted by a procession of God-fearing flagellants and monks, carrying a giant cross through the village streets and whipping themselves as self-punishment. Bergman keeps his camera close to the ground as they trample over us, chanting their mournful ‘Dies Irae’ motif which continues to weave into the score like a harbinger of doom.

One of the great scenes of the film, which would later be parodied by Monty Python. We sit at a low angle as a procession of monks, preachers, and flagellants interrupt a comical performance, dampening spirits with a deathly gloom.

At this moment, an astonishingly composed cutaway to the expressions of Block, Jons, and a mute girl they have picked up reveals their utter disdain, staggering their faces into the background. Bergman then follows up this shot with his camera tracking along a line of villagers, one by one kneeling to the ground in fearful reverence. The sermonising preacher who takes the stage effectively shifts attention away from the troupe of performers entirely, though in case we are driven to sympathise with any of them, Bergman also draws our attention to the affair their leader Skat is conducting with the wife of the town blacksmith. Through local cheaters, thieves, and self-righteous evangelists, moral debasement runs deep in this setting, and The Seventh Seal never fails to match such austerity with an equally severe visual style.

During the procession of monks, Bergman lands one powerful image after another, cutting between the sceptics and the believers.

Each time we return to scenes with naïve actor Jof and his family though, small sparks of levity quietly emerge in this story. His glimpse of a woman walking with her child may be brushed off as a hallucination, but he is convinced that they represent the Mother Mary and an infant Jesus. His other visions aren’t so easily dismissed, and even appear prophetic in nature – after all, he seems to be the only one outside of Block who can see Death playing their fatal game of chess. Our wandering knight’s brief picnic with Jof’s family on a hillside is the first moment of serenity that he finds in his journey, and as they share in wild strawberries to the peaceful sound of a lyre, Block starts to uncover the meaning of life he has pursued for so long.

The meaning of life begins to dawn on our troubled knight, as he joins these representatives of Mary, Joseph, and Christ for a picnic on a hillside.

And therein lies one of Bergman’s most significant symbols of The Seventh Seal, turning Jof, Mia, and their baby into surrogates of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Humanity’s salvation does not lie in dour warnings of doom, self-indulgence, or existential searches for purpose, as Block discovers, but in the birth and nourishment of new life. As for the one meaningful deed he wishes to accomplish, it presents itself as a selfless sacrifice during his last few rounds of chess. A clumsy toppling of the board may seem to his opponent a desperate way to try and escape his fate, and yet it is the first time Death has truly been outwitted. Not even he can comprehend total self-sacrifice as a strategic move, as he is distracted by Block’s deliberate blunder long enough for Jof and his family flee unnoticed.

“When we meet again, you and your companions’ time will be up,” Death informs his prey before departing, and indeed as Block finally returns home to his castle with his fellow travellers, a quiet recognition that they will not see the stormy night through settles over them. Recalling the peaceful meal he shared with Jof and his family, Block and his fellowship partake in a last supper together, while his wife reads out from the same chapter of Revelations which opened the film. Death enters the room silently but powerfully, his presence only revealed to us by the slow turning of faces towards a point just behind the camera, each one precisely arranged across the frame in expressions of disbelief. Only Block refuses Death eye contact, instead choosing to look up to the heavens and pray in the background. The window of light that Bergman frames right behind his head is the perfect finishing touch to this immaculate composition.

Bergman separates von Sydow from the rest of the ensemble in this shot, relegating him to the background and pouring in light above his head. He is the only one here not looking straight at Death, who stands just behind the camera.

Is it a flash of transcendent wonder which grants the mute girl Christ’s words as he hung on the cross, “It is finished,” or is her proclamation the result of some divine miracle, ending God’s crushing silence? There is beauty in this ambiguity, and all throughout his film Bergman deliberately balances such interpretations on a knife’s edge, denying us the comfort of conventional explanations. The Seventh Seal is a film of thought-provoking symbolism, but there should be no understating its achievement of screenwriting either, effectively reframing the classical hero’s journey within an expedition of biblical and philosophical significance. Its poetic dialogue too effortlessly flows from one existential contemplation to the next, delivering the sort of lines one might find quoted by theologians and sceptics alike. Especially as the surviving Jof spies their tiny silhouettes performing the Dance of Death atop a hill, he describes their movements with lyrical eloquence, allegorically detailing the transition from one life to the next.

“The strict master Death bids them dance. He wants them to hold hands and to tread the dance in a long line. At the head goes the strict master with the scythe and hourglass. But the Fool brings up the rear with his lute. They move away from the dawn in a solemn dance away towards the dark lands, while the rain cleanses their cheeks of the salt from their bitter tears.”

Perhaps those more religiously minded characters might view the parting clouds and fresh sunlight as a sign of Christ’s second coming. Bergman would never be so obvious though. The Seventh Seal stands among history’s greatest pieces of theological cinema, not for the moral lessons it imparts, but the questions it provokes, cutting to the core of our existential search for something larger than ourselves. Maybe there is also salvation in the opposite though – an acceptance of the “unknowing,” allowing one to graciously hand themselves over to the great equaliser of Death. Bergman remains torn between faith and doubt right to the end of his grand medieval fable, though only a director with as keen an eye for spiritual iconography as him could build both ideals to such a tender, hopeful resolution, recognising their essential place in humanity’s ever-expanding self-awareness.

The Dance of Death is an icon that stretches back to the Late Middle Ages, and Bergman wisely chooses to end his film on its image.

The Seventh Seal is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel and Kanopy, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 48min

Over the centuries of stories based around Europe’s Midsummer festivities, there has often been a dreamy magic hanging in the air between lovers on its strange, shortened night, reconsidering old passions and finding new beginnings within its otherworldly aura. Most famously, it is the setting upon which Shakespeare’s ensemble of characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream fall under the love spells of the forest fey. Its influence on Ingmar Bergman’s lusty romp Smiles of a Summer Night is evident right there in the name, though this is no direct adaptation of the Bard’s fantastical comedy. Class satire runs sharply through Bergman’s targeting of wealthy aristocrats, bringing them down to the level of the carefree servants who roll around in fields and blithely indulge in their carnal passions. Although there are no whimsical forces guiding these self-conceited characters into each other’s arms, it very much feels that way to those wrapped up in its intoxicating atmosphere.

Before we even arrive at this fateful Midsummer party, Bergman lays out the formal groundwork of each character, examining their place in this intricate web. Several of his regular collaborators are here – Gunnar Björnstrand as successful lawyer Fredrik, Eva Dahlbeck as his ex-lover Desiree, and Harriet Andersson as his housemaid Petra. Jarl Kulle and Margit Carlqvist are also present, both having taken more minor roles in previous Bergman films, and now being given more screen time as Desiree’s consort, Count Carl-Magnus, and his wife, Countess Charlotte. It is near impossible to pick the greatest performance among them. Björnstrand may claim the largest role, but with Andersson’s swaying hips, Dahlbeck’s shrewd scheming, and Kulle’s comical turns of phrase, each actor stands out during their time in the spotlight.

Bergman features one of his signature shots here – the parallel faces lying down, one obscuring the other.
Bergman is an actor’s director, and not just in guiding their performances. He blocks and lights their faces to perfection, emphasising their expressive eyes and shrouding them in darkness when the scene calls for it.

Like so many others, Kulle’s Count lacks total integrity, in one moment threatening that “One can rally with my wife, but touch my mistress and I’m a tiger!” and later inverting it when it is the Countess who he is at risk of losing. The extreme moods of these characters shift with the whims of their desire, filling them with jealousy, anger, and passion, but very little substance. Desiree even shows some self-awareness of this while arguing with Fredrik, digging herself deeper into a rage that she can’t remember the reason for.

“I’m speaking! I will speak, even if I have nothing to say! You’ve made so furious, that I forgot what I was thinking!”

Bergman relishes working with a large ensemble, as the relationships he draws between each individual emerges in his blocking.

Petra on the other hand is the most easy-going character of the bunch, right next to Desiree’s servant, Frid. There is something of a bohemian nature to both as they laugh and merrily recite poetry, which any of their masters might brush off as silly behaviour. “The summer night has three smiles,” Frid starts. “This is the first, between midnight and dawn, when young lovers open their hearts and loins.” The second comes “for the jesters, the fools, and the incorrigible” – perhaps Petra and Frid themselves, who bask in the glory of life while the others engage in petty games and affairs.

“And the summer night smiled for the third time!” he finally announces as the sun rises, “for the sad and dejected, for the sleepless and lost souls, for the frightened and the lonely.” Bergman proves his hand as a skilled comedic writer in Smiles of a Summer Night, and yet in littering his screenplay with such thoughtful reflections he also deepens its joyful wonder, stepping back to observe these tiny figures within the context of something far grander than they realise.

Petra and Frid are light, easygoing counterparts to the complicated romances of the upper classes. Bergman mostly plays out their storyline in the bright open air, in contrast to the dark interiors where affairs and betrayals unfold.

This isn’t to say that Bergman himself is not willing to engage with their trivial drama though. His usual flair for blocking actors using a remarkable depth of field serves a practical purpose here in teasing out the complex web of betrayals, seductions, and alliances at play. Eavesdroppers lurk behind doors in the foreground, listening to private conversations in the next room over, while elsewhere delicate romances flourish in the reflections of ornately framed mirrors and quiet ponds. Unlike many of his previous films which frequently focus on one or two characters per shot, the ensemble dynamic here often forces his camera out into wides rather than close-ups, making for ripe stylistic and narrative comparisons to Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game.

An eavesdropper lurks in the foreground, as a conversation plays out through this dark doorframe.
A playful romance caught in the exquisite reflection of the courtyard’s pond.

Bergman capitalises particularly well on this staging at the Midsummer’s Eve dinner party, where Desiree herself plots to manipulate specific relationships based on her seating arrangements. It is an elaborately Gothic set piece in its design, framing characters between melted candelabras, and shrinking them behind a cluttered banquet table of flowers, fruit, bowls, and decorative ornaments. It is also the perfect setting for couples to start breaking apart at the seams – a discussion over whether men or woman are better seducers sets in motion the Countess’ plot to ensnare Fredrik, while he observes his own marriage to 19-year-old Anne crumble as she falls for his son, Henrik. His head laying on the table and her comforting hand on his shoulder are the first things we will notice in this shot, and yet Bergman is sure to block Fredrik’s resentful expression lurking right behind them, signalling a subtle shift in his affection for her.

The cluttered dining scene makes for an absolutely ravishing set piece. Melted candelabras, goblets, and platters of food obstruct frames, within which Bergman arranges his actors into spectacular compositions.

The eventual consummation of this young, scandalous love comes as a whimsically fated development, shedding that mysterious Midsummer magic of Shakespeare’s play over their unexpected encounter. An earlier reveal of a secret lever which wheels in a bed from a neighbouring room returns by pure chance, as when Henrik attempts suicide over his attraction to his stepmother, he accidentally activates it. Perhaps in this loose take on Shakespeare’s play, Bergman himself is playing the role of the mischievous sprite Puck through his behind-the-scenes manipulations, as who else should be laying in that bed at that exact time but the one Henrik has been longing for? To him, it could very well be a dying vision, while to the slowly waking Anne, it is a sensual dream. Still, that tiny nudge from the universe is all it takes for them to elope, creating a knock-on effect which neatly ties up the remaining strings Bergman has been slyly pulling this whole time.

Long dissolves are well-suited to this reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whimsically and dreamily bridging one scene to the next.

“Love is a loathsome business,” Anne piercingly proclaims to the Countess at one point, and the suffering it entails for those who corrupt its purity certainly frame it as such. Much like the game of croquet the upper-class men play on the lawn, it turns “an innocent game into an offensive battle of prestige,” wherein each player keeps one-upping the others until egos and relationships are destroyed. On a night such as Midsummer’s Eve though, the universe seems to be resetting itself by way of playful chaos to make way for fresh new starts, and such grievances need not last long. Even beyond its class satire and complex characters, Bergman buries a profound wisdom deep in Smiles of a Summer Night, blessing his noble fools and foolish nobles alike with second chances that let them simultaneously embrace new possibilities, and learn to appreciate those they had forgotten.

Smiles of a Summer Night is currently streaming The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Dreams (1955)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 27min

The romantic dreams that young model Doris and her agent Susanne each chase down in the city of Gothenburg are blindly hinged on the belief that men are not inherently disappointing creatures. Both women are separated in age by about a decade or so, and the gap in maturity shows. While Doris thoughtlessly breaks up with her boyfriend and passionately launches herself into a new affair with the first man to shower her with affection, Susanne slowly unravels as she rides into the city where an old flame resides. Lights from outside the carriage pass rhythmically across her sweaty face, we follow her rapidly shifting gaze between ‘open’ and ‘shut’ signs, and as she mutters an apprehensive resolution to “see him,” Ingmar Bergman maps out the psychological terrain of her anxious, compulsive desire.

Susanne slowly unravels on the train to Gothenburg, and Bergman puts his penchant for lighting and close-ups to excellent use as we enter her anxious mind.

Dreams arrived in 1955 a mere two years before Bergman’s major breakthroughs The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, and though critical praise was lukewarm at the time, within it are sure signs of a maturing artistic voice moving towards a higher level of filmmaking. The first five minutes of this film are spent in the wordless silence of Susanne’s modelling studio – fresh prints are brought to the agency owner, an assistant lights her cigarette, and finally Doris arrives on set, where the photographer arranges her in elegant poses. It is especially one fat man’s lustful, impatient finger tapping which breaks through Bergman’s subdued sound design of luxurious lounge music and ruffling clothes, creating an atmosphere which begs for escape from its own stifled repression. It is only when Susanne and Doris arrive in Gothenburg on their work trip though that any sort of catharsis starts to feel tangible.

An suspenseful five minutes to open the film, examining the tensions between characters on this model photo shoot without a word of dialogue.

This is not a film about the bond between two women though. Bergman keeps them separate throughout most of Dreams, alternating between their parallel stories. His visual compositions are precise and considerate, especially in the constant presence of reflections around Doris as she gazes through shop windows and lets herself be swept away by Gunnar Björnstrand’s wealthy middle-aged consul, Otto. Mirrors follow her into the dressmaker’s shop where he buys her a new gown too, inviting her into his superficial, material world, and she returns the affection as she takes him out to an amusement park. There, Bergman fixes his camera to rollercoasters and spinning rides, letting it fly in manic movements and cutting its footage up into violent montages within a ghost train. While she screams with delight, he is visibly queasy, and though he regains his composure upon taking her home to his giant manor, that uneasy dynamic soon returns.

Bergman weaves in reflections of Doris through her early wanderings around Gothenburg, centring the world around her.
Vigorous excitement as Bergman plants his camera on a rollercoaster and spinning rides, joining Doris and Otto on their date.

This time though, Otto’s reservations seem to stem from quiet guilt rather than nausea. A painting of his wife on the wall bears significant resemblance to Doris, but she has been dead for some time now, according to him. When a third party enters the scene, it comes as a surprise – Otto’s daughter’s entrance is framed in a doorway that Doris is peering through, and she immediately launches into a disdainful chastisement of her father’s arrogance.

“You disgust me. I find you ridiculous and repulsive.”

An elegant frame as Otto’s daughter unexpectedly enters the picture, bringing Doris’ dreams to an end.

Otto’s wife is not dead, as it turns out, but in a psychiatric hospital he refuses to visit. He is stingy with spending money on his own family, but apparently not on Doris. “Lust overcame tightness this time. It’s a laughable sight,” his daughter derisively proclaims, before quickly realising that he has even gifted her valuable family jewellery. For the first time, there is cold detachment in Bergman’s blocking, poignantly facing Otto and Doris out a window before she awkwardly departs with the realisation she has walked in on a sad, wounded family, and pulled them even further apart.

Parallel faces in Bergman’s blocking, expressing sober disappointment.

At least Doris has the excuse of naïve youth behind her though. With Susanne’s extra years of experience, she should know exactly what she is walking back into with her old lover, Henrik. For a time, she dances around the decision, silently passing through forests where she spies on his home, and eventually making the call to meet up. Once again, Bergman chooses to carry this stretch of storytelling without dialogue, absorbing us in elegantly composed shots which themselves become expressions of her silent emotional journey.

A picturesque frame in the forest as Susanne watches her old lover from afar.

The contrast between the Susanne we see in these lonely moments and the woman in control of a modelling agency is quite striking. When Doris misses a shoot, Susanne proves herself to be a harsh, assertive woman, though evidently one simply using this severe demeanour as a cover for her own insecurities. Deep down she is “sick with hatred” for Henrik’s wife, even wishing her dead, and yet this intense loathing frightens her. The further we get into Dreams, the more this seemingly confident woman is layered with internal conflicts.

Quite essential to our reading of Susanne’s vulnerability is also the ways Bergman lights close-ups to perfection, especially his dimming of the backlight to emphasise the contours of each expression passing across her face during her rendezvous with Henrik. For a brief time, she is swept away by his romance and invitation to join him in Oslo for a work trip, though such fantasies are short-lived with the arrival of his shrewd, perceptive wife. Her words are cutting – there is no substance to this man whatsoever. He is lazy and tired, and any illusions one might have about carrying on affair with him would be quickly destroyed by his own inability to commit to anyone. Henrik meekly lingers in the background of this scene, framed right between the two women, and with this succinct visual blocking, Bergman definitively proves his inadequacy.

Bergman’s arrangement of faces is just as important as the performances themselves, here pushing a shameful Henrik into the background and turning him away from the camera as his wife and old paramour trap him on either side – while between them, there is a whole other story unfolding.

Dreams is bookended with a return to the modelling studio it started in, signalling a withdrawal to the ordinary lives Doris and Susanne have always known, and effectively putting an end to those far-flung fantasies suggested in its title. Even here though, Bergman continues to draw a brilliant formal contrast between these two heartbreaks, letting the wildly emotional Doris emerge with renewed optimism and love for her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Susanne is driven further into her cynicism, tearing up Henrik’s apology letter and re-invitation to meet him in Oslo. She has evidently been in Doris’ situation before and forgotten how deeply this misery could cut her. Perhaps this is just part of life’s cycles though, Bergman posits, leading both young adults and their older, wiser counterparts down the same paths of inevitable disappointment.

A bookended return to the photo studio, bringing Susanne and Doris’ parallel journeys full circle.

Dreams is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

A Lesson in Love (1954)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 36min

For a director so often associated with existential dramas of overcast skies and sombre expressions, Ingmar Bergman had no qualms indulging his lighter, more playful side in A Lesson in Love. His previous film, Sawdust and Tinsel, was a financial failure, and so Swedish producers approached him with the challenge of creating something with broader appeal to mainstream audiences, like those romantic comedies which Americans seemed to adore. The resulting screenplay came together in two weeks, serving as a frivolous experiment which he carried out “just for fun – and money.”

Still, A Lesson in Love is inseparable from the rest of Bergman’s oeuvre. The presence of wry humour does not detract from the marital drama at play, following in the lineage of his previous films like Thirst and To Joy, and driving the wedge of infidelity between middle-aged spouses. Gunnar Björnstrand is David, the unfaithful gynaecologist seeking out fresh experiences with young mistresses, and Eva Dahlbeck is his wife Marianne, who left old flame Carl-Adam at the altar for her current husband. Now in the present day, she is travelling to Copenhagan to right those wrongs, and finally marry her ex-fiancé – with the only problem being that David is on that train too.

As is typical of Bergman, flashbacks ensue, though these windows into the past look much more like sketches from Preston Sturges or Ernst Lubitsch comedies than subdued reflections. We learn Marianne was already getting cold feet on her wedding day before best man David came into the picture, as he finds her tying a noose and fully ready to suicide. A tug on the rope brings the entire ceiling down around her, and while the dust settles around her confession of love, her uncontrollable sneezing sends the romantic moment crashing into idiosyncratic foibles.

In the modern day, these old nostalgic fantasies have faded. “The conjugal bed is love’s demise,” David humorously surmises when his mistress considers returning to her own husband, proving Bergman’s own versatility as a writer to draw from his well of philosophical musings and construct succinctly witty lines. The integration of comedy and drama in A Lesson in Love is unfortunately not always so smooth as this, especially given that his narrative tends to alternate unevenly between both. This is more of an issue with the formal cohesion of the piece than individual moments though, as Bergman still often uses his blocking to build out the conflict of his characters, whether by laying their heads next to each other in opposing directions or trapping them together in their claustrophobic train compartment.

The great paradox of David and Marianne’s relationship is just how little these lovers with wandering eyes are actually interested in anyone else. David does not give much regard to his mistress, and now as Marianne approaches Carl-Adam for the second time with the intent of marriage, she once again finds herself falling back in David’s arms, not unlike her wedding day sixteen years ago.

Ironically, it is Carl-Adam’s own doing which motivates this, leading his old friend into a kiss with a stranger which incites Marianne’s violent jealousy. Their feud spills out into the streets of Copenhagen, though Bergman keeps his distance from them in a long shot covering the breadth of a vast river, panning his camera with them as they furiously shout and pace back and forth. Old habits die hard apparently – there is far more vigour in this relationship than anywhere else, ending A Lesson in Love on a quaint, slightly rushed note of their sudden reconciliation. For a relatively minor Bergman film, this is an impressive display of comic versatility, playing to the sort of gags one might have found in Classical Hollywood. Even then though, one should never discount the pure savagery and heartbreak that he brings to such a vividly troubled marriage of chilly, resentful lovers.

A Lesson in Love is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 33min

Life is a circus, Ingmar Bergman posits in Sawdust and Tinsel, creating entertainment out of backstage affairs and laughter out of humiliation. It travels long, grey roads from one location to the next, never staying anywhere long enough to grow roots and thrive. It has a strange pull over those trapped in its cycles – the ringleader of this specific troupe, Albert, dreams of leaving it all behind, but realistically this is not something he could ever be satisfied with. When he meets his estranged wife, Agda, who has since settled down and found peace, there is nothing about her stagnant existence that is even slightly appealing to him.

“Year in and year out… everything stands still. For me it’s fulfillment.”

“For me it’s emptiness.”

Therein lies the irreconcilable difference between the nomadic buffoons of Sawdust and Tinsel and the ordinary people they fall for. Albert and his mistress, Anne, will find disappointment wherever they go, but at their very core is a desire for those perpetual distractions which save them from self-pity. In the very first scene as a trail of wagons ascends hills and crosses bridges, Albert joins the coachman to hear the story of how the circus clown, Frost, pathetically tried to cover up his wife as she went swimming in front of nearby soldiers. Bergman renders his flashback through overexposed film, like a bright memory fondly living on in everyone’s minds save for Frost himself. Albert would do well to take the clown’s mistake as a lesson rather than mere entertainment, though given the parallel trajectory that he heads down in Sawdust and Tinsel as a cuckolded man trying to save face, it appears that his embarrassing story may too one day be recounted as a light-hearted joke at his expense.

Over-exposed footage in this initial flashback like a dream, which foreshadows the struggle of sexes that will play out as the film’s main narrative.

Bergman’s wry sense of humour is stronger than ever here, marking a shift in his career away from the troubled romances of youth and towards more philosophically minded dramas with sharp, witty edges. So too does it mark another step forward for him as a visual filmmaker, pairing for the very first time with cinematographer Sven Nykvist who would go on to shoot seventeen more of his films right into the 1980s. In many exterior scenes, and especially that opening montage of wagons trailing across grassy landscapes, the horizon looks as if it has been smothered by a giant grey blanket and pushed right to the bottom of the frame, along with the lowly people who traverse it.

An elegant montage of the traveling circus, its reflection bouncing off calm rivers and rising up over the horizon at sunrise.

As we move indoors, a Wellesian deep focus takes hold of the camera, letting Bergman’s typically excellent blocking emerge in dressing rooms and theatres. It is here where divisions are drawn between characters, both in the layers of visual depth and the cluttered production design, as Frans’ seduction of Anne in his trailer frequently splits them between mirrors in beautifully fragmented compositions. Bergman works wonders with this sort of framing, in one shot catching Frans’ reflection while he stands behind the camera, and having him dangle an amulet right in front of the lens. With a simple image, Anna is tempted away from the life she has grown sick of, and a physical barrier is simultaneously drawn between them. When they are united in this cramped space though, it is of course the mirror which brings them together, inviting an intimacy which she cannot find in her relationship with Albert.

Some impeccable blocking in the mirrors of Frans’ trailer, first dividing them on either side of the frame, and then uniting them in a single reflection.
More division in the blocking, though this time through Bergman’s depth of field splitting Anna and Albert across layers of the frame.

Whether in his personal or professional life, Albert can barely catch a break from anyone, as even when he approaches the local theatre director, Mr Sjuberg, and asks to borrow costumes, he is turned down with a savagely poetic soliloquy. From a low angle, Gunnar Björnstrand stands against an imposing backdrop of the stage’s ornate ceiling and chandelier, drawing a snooty distinction between creators with noble ambitions such as himself, and those like Albert who belong at the bottom of society’s ladder.

“We make art. You make artifice. The lowest of us would spit on the best of you. Why? You only risk your lives. We risk our pride.”

A truly Wellesian low angle, slightly askew and using the deep focus lens to turn the ceiling into an imposing backdrop.

Only an artist with as much self-awareness as Bergman could write a passage so sharply satirical of his own profession. To consider one’s ego as more precious than life is to deem oneself above the material world, and to equally condemn those material beings such as Albert to the “world of misery, lice, and disease” they have always known.

As an actor in Mr Sjuberg’s cast, Frans is just as much an advocate of this classist thinking, topping off his cuckolding of Albert with one final act of sadistic humiliation in the hapless ringleader’s own circus. Starting with a few sexual taunts thrown Anne’s way as she rides a horse around the tent, Albert quicky gets involved too, whipping off Frans’ hat in a show of petty power. It is a brutal, bloody brawl that follows – a struggle of masculine dominance which simply ends up asserting the same rigid hierarchy which makes Albert, Anne, and their troupe the butt of society’s joke.

Albert’s humiliation rendered as circus entertainment, building on Bergman’s potent metaphor of life.
Bergman’s blocking of faces in close-up is among the best in the artform’s history – a lot of this has to do with the lighting, the depth of field, and of course, the actors.

There is nothing but a sorrowful look shared between these two lovers before it is time for them to move on again, riding across monochrome landscapes with the rest of their misfit crew in much the same way they came in. Life’s tragicomic farce continues, undercutting dreams of escaping its stranglehold with constant reminders of their own inadequacy. If there is any solace, at least those embarrassing stories will make for great comic fodder down the track, offering momentary distractions from their sad, squalid circumstances. Bergman needles the existential drama of Sawdust and Tinsel with a fine, sophisticated point, and in his extraordinary staging finds both sympathy and outright pity for its wayfaring circus performers doomed to eternal ridicule.

Sawdust and Tinsel is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Summer with Monika (1953)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 36min

Ingmar Bergman treads familiar ground in the tragic tale of one young Swedish couple’s idyllic summer fling, and yet there is something about Summer with Monika which goes down even smoother than many of his previous ill-fated love stories. Perhaps its laidback pacing can be given some credit for this, dispensing with his usual flashback structure to meet Harry and Monika at their most innocent and linger in their escape to the Stockholm archipelago. Maybe it is also Harriet Andersson’s remarkable debut film performance, the best in any Bergman film at this point, utterly charming us with warmth, poignancy, and honest expressions of sexuality. Certainly though a large portion of this film’s humble beauty can be traced back to the sensitivity of his visual artistry, studying the expressive contours of the actors’ faces in close-up and gracefully traversing their city and island homes.

Rocky coastlines and oceans winding around these young lovers in gorgeous long shots.
Bergman blocks his actors’ faces like few others in film history, and his camera is especially drawn to Andersson’s face throughout Summer with Monika.

With the city’s infrastructure and rivers forming a backdrop to the early stages of Harry and Monika’s relationship, Bergman borrows a few neorealist qualities from the Italians, mounting pressures on both in their individual lives. The camera uneasily hides with a small child behind a wagon wheel as Monika’s father stumbles drunkenly from the local pub with his friends, and though he seems to be in a good mood for the moment, there is still suspense back home as his family carefully walks on eggshells. Slowly, the camera tracks to the side where it settles on Monika’s face anxiously anticipating an outburst – which of course arrives the moment she snaps at him to stop standing on her new shoes.

Meanwhile at Harry’s job, he is visually hemmed in by colleagues criticising his work ethic, and Bergman further crowds the shot with a handsomely constructed composition of glassware lined across its foreground. With the men around him dissipating, Harry’s decisive resignation in this moment feels truly freeing, even seeing him cheekily push one of those glasses off its shelf.

An inspired arrangement of the frame, pressing men in on Harry from the background, and the set dressing from the foreground.

In the surrounding Swedish islands where both seek refuge, city views are replaced with rocky coastlines and oceans, turning this gorgeous rural scenery into their new home. There are plenty of long shots here that Bergman lavishes upon them, framing them within the gentle curve of seashores and atop a pier as they slow dance at dusk, and as he moves his camera closer, they are infused even more with their surroundings. Still landscapes are disrupted by their faces rapidly moving into the foreground, and their silhouetted reflections ripple in ponds like natural extensions of the environment.

Long shots of Sweden’s islands ruptured by faces suddenly entering the frame – playful blocking from Bergman.
Looking up at the sky via reflections in a pond, where Andersson’s own silhouette ripples in the water.
A dilapidated boathouse, a lone dinghy, and a wooden pier reflected in the water – a quiet, romantic composition for Monika and Harry as they slow dance together.

Within the context of the 1950s, Andersson’s intermittent onscreen nudity was considered particularly transgressive, though within this ‘Paradise’ it also carries implications of an Adam and Eve-type fable, much like Summer Interlude from two years earlier. This is a romance that is allowed the time and space develop without external pressures, and Bergman’s close-ups of their faces resting against each other intimately expresses that delicate sentiment.

The appearance of Monika’s jealous ex-boyfriend to destroy their boat though effectively serves the same role as the allegorical snake, bringing moral corruption to the islands where they bask in their simple lives. Small arguments arise as time languidly drifts on, and soon they realise that their days of shirking responsibility are coming to an end. “We have to make something real out of our lives,” Harry ponders, though neither he nor Monika are particularly well-equipped to handle the soul-sucking drudgery of adulthood. Unlike the sudden deaths of previous Bergman melodramas, the downfall of these lovers simply comes through those rites of passage one must shoulder in a society of strict moral standards. Settling down, having babies, the woman staying home as the man goes to work – it is a contrived dynamic that they never had to consider as runaways, and which now wears away at their own self-identities, love, and happiness.

Divisions drawn in the mise-en-scène, with faces at different depths in the frame. Bitter disconnection rendered visually between the two lovers.

Divisions are drawn in the mise-en-scène as their quarrels turn into vicious arguments, and even the bars of their bed frame become oppressive visual obstructions when a fight turns into physical abuse. Yet amid such tragic conflict, Bergman still finds the time to hang on his empathetic close-ups, once capturing their tender love, though now only finding melancholy isolation. When Harry comes home and catches Monika in the middle of an affair, we don’t even get a reverse shot of what he is seeing, but instead we simply linger on his seething dismay. Later after they have separated and all their possessions are being carried out, he catches his own reflection in a mirror and almost seems to stare right at us, as Bergman dissolves into all the memories of their summer paradise.

Bergman shaping Lars Ekborg’s face in close-up through shadows as he wistfully reminisces the romance he has lost.

Easily the strongest and most memorable shot from Summer with Monika is that which hangs on Andersson’s sad, prolonged gaze for over thirty seconds, letting her lock eyes with the camera while she slowly puffs on a cigarette. Though she is sitting in a club next to the man she is cheating with, she clearly feels no emotional investment in any of it, as Bergman gradually tracks in on her passive face and dims the background lighting into complete darkness where she is totally isolated. Jaunty jazz music keeps playing, but there is no joy to be found anymore. Bergman guarantees the loss of innocence in his characters’ lives as sure as seasonal changes, and it is in that contrast of light nostalgia against the demoralising fatigue of urban living where he sinks in a poignant recognition of what modern society has so cruelly stolen from its youth.

Maybe the single strongest shot in the film. Andersson locks eyes with the camera in close-up, which tracks forward as the background lighting dims.

Summer with Monika is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Summer Interlude (1951)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 36min

By the time the world Ingmar Bergman started manifesting his great artistic potential and the world started catching on, he was up to his tenth feature, Summer Interlude. In 1951, it was his brightest film yet, though such tender optimism only makes its inevitable heartbreak land with larger impact. The warm days that young ballerina Marie and college student Henrik spend basking in each other’s love on their tiny Swedish island drift by with idyllic grace, and even within his short 90-minute narrative, Bergman affords them what feels like all the time in the world, right up to the devastating end of their summer vacation.

The contrast between Marie’s sunny memories and the cool remoteness of her present is readily apparent. In place of light clothing and swimming costumes, she now wraps herself up in thick coats, putting up an armour against the cold Swedish winter and the pity of others. In the theatre where she is rehearsing for an upcoming production of Swan Lake though, her pale, austere makeup is what provides that impenetrable cover instead, as she refuses to cave into whatever tragedy we assume unfolded between her and the man whose diary has fallen back into her lap after thirteen years. Since then, she has grown proficient in her art, and much like the use of Beethoven’s music in Bergman’s previous film, To Joy, ballet becomes a creative outpouring of emotion in Summer Interlude where words will not suffice. The stage’s plain grey backdrop forces our attention entirely onto the dancers in front, where Bergman’s depth of field and camera angles keep finding new dimensions to their elegant movements, making for some exquisite displays of choreography.

Beautifully framed extreme close-ups revealing the cold austerity of Marie’s made-up face.
So too does Marie’s clothing in the present day tightly restrain her – very different from the flashbacks.
Like To Joy, Bergman spends a good while revelling in his characters’ artistic expressions. Here it is ballet, and he uses camera angles and depth of field to make it entirely cinematic.

Ultimately though, Marie finds her life thoroughly unfulfilling. Only when the arrival of Henrik’s diary motivates her to catch a ferry back to the island where they fell in love does she recognise what is missing, and romantic long dissolves accompany her as she returns to those old memories. A priest she hasn’t seen since her Confirmation is the first to make an appearance, as if summoned by fate to bridge the gap between the present and the past, and from there the extended flashback described in Summer Interlude’s title starts flowing in picturesque visuals and poetic voiceovers.

“Days like pearls, round and lustrous, thread on a golden string. Days filled with frolic and caresses. Nights of waking dreams. When did we sleep? We had no time for sleep.”

Bergman showing off the rocky shorelines and forests of Sweden in his scenery, setting it up like a woodland fairytale shared between lovers.

Not until this film had Bergman shot the rocky shorelines, towering woodlands, and grassy hills of Sweden with such scenic adoration, turning it into an Eden-like paradise where these Adam and Eve stand-ins swim, kiss, and eat wild berries. So too does his staging of their romance flourish in its tiny tensions and pleasures, creating the first instance of Bergman’s characteristic blocking of parallel faces lying down, with one slightly obscuring the other and creating a visual harmony. Marie’s Uncle Erland remains a slightly disturbing figure here too, as even in one scene where he does not appear onscreen, his presence ruptures a shot of the lovers’ faces nestled against each other, swiftly splitting them up on either side of a door that he is lurking behind.

The iconic parallel faces shot that both Bergman and Agnes Varda would keep returning to, studying the contours of the actors’ profiles.
A smooth camera transition from one romantic close-up into a slightly wider shot that splits them on either side of the door Uncle Erland lurks behind.

Even though Summer Interlude’s narrative remains firmly in the real world, Bergman’s writing hints at the lyrical, philosophical dramas that he was only a few short years away from making at the time, speaking directing to the intersection of spirituality and love in his characters.

“One night, after a scorching summer day of blazing sunlight, there was an immense silence that reached all the way up to the starless vault of heaven. The silence between us was immense as well.”

So too does he weave melancholy metaphors into his screenplay with astounding fluency, as this intimate dream draws to a close along with the warm weather, foreshadowing colder days on the horizon.

“Can you feel autumn on the air?”

It is not some tragic character flaw or adversary which destroys these lovers, but simply a moment of poor judgement and fortune. Henrik’s jump into shallow water leaves him badly injured, and after Bergman tilts his camera up to a cloud hanging above, a graphic match cut to his head lying on his deathbed touchingly makes him one with the heavens.

A tragic graphic match cut upon Henrik’s premature death.
It’s always about the blocking for Bergman, getting adventurous here with the use of mirrors to place Marie side by side with the Ballet Master.

Marie’s pilgrimage back to the island of her youth in the present day is merely the start of her journey back into the world as she used to know it – a happier, more welcoming place, brimming with opportunities. It is rather by engaging with the personal entries in Henrik’s diary that this is made possible, and by sharing those memories with her new boyfriend, David, she can finally open herself to the affections of others again. Her internal monologue as she wipes off her makeup in the dressing room mirror is a totally unnecessary addition to the scene, as Maj-Britt Nilsson’s expressive face tells us everything about this transformation, smiling and playfully pulling faces at her reflection. Marie and Henrik aren’t the first lovers in a Bergman film to be brutally torn apart, but they are first to be developed with such visual splendour and warmth, romantically calling back to those innocent summers of youth that seemed to go on forever.

Summer Interlude is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

To Joy (1950)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 38min

Before we even meet Stig’s wife, Marta, in To Joy, we discover that she has already died. It was an accident with a kerosene stove, we are told, though the tragedy doesn’t feel nearly as potent as it will by the end of the film. Their relationship is one of frequent turmoil, rocked by an unexpected pregnancy, an affair, and insurmountable ambition that Stig’s talent as a violinist just can’t live up to. Like so many other lovers in previous Ingmar Bergman films, bitter scorn and overwhelming passion are locked in a constant struggle, but there is also a mutual understanding here which transcends either, expressing ideas and emotions that can only be captured through their music.

As the conductor of the classical orchestra that both play in, Victor Sjöström becomes a father figure of sorts to this young couple. Professor Sönderby carries out his own rich emotional arc in his transformation from a perfectionistic who won’t budge his rehearsal time for a wedding, into a man whose heart melts at the sight of their small family, proving himself to be perhaps the richest character of them all. He is a pure embodiment of the joy they share together, shaping the sounds of strings, woodwinds, and brass instruments through the movement of his hands, and frequently underscoring scenes of their life with pieces written by Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn.

This isn’t quite Whiplash, but Bergman’s pairing of montage editing and camera movements as the orchestra plays brings a dynamic energy to these swells of grand emotion. Crane shots move from high above stages down to ground level where Bergman finds harmonious patterns in rows of identical instruments, and through the harp’s strings he obstructs wide shots of the entire ensemble, each putting in their part to create something grander than any single one of them. These interludes make up a decent portion of the film’s entire run time, becoming extensions of the characters as their faces fade in over the top of sheet music flipping from page to page.

When the exuberant Beethoven symphony from Stig’s rehearsal continues playing beneath his discovery that Marta has given birth to twins, dialogue isn’t needed to feel the pure elation of the sequence. Neither is it integral to the tender sadness of Bergman’s visual compositions, underlining the couple’s gradual estrangement in one beautifully blocked shot of both their heads turned away from each other at different depths, nor the elegant frame of Stig’s mistress, Nelly, entering a doorway through a thin strip of light to silently watch him play.

At the same time though, Bergman’s achievement in screenwriting here may be one of his strongest at this point in his career, letting a drunken Stig deliver harsh condemnations to his fellow musicians he calls “despicable loafers” who “wallow and slobber and burp in your stained ties.” It is impossible for him to separate the disappointment he feels in his own solo performance from his relationships, and so when his debut as criticised an “unnecessary suicide”, Marta is regrettably caught up in his angst. She insults him, he slaps her, she sardonically tells him that perhaps Nelly will nurture his genius, and it all seems to be over for this once happy couple.

But this is an Ingmar Bergman film, and so ties between quarrelling spouses can’t be severed as easily as this. Love and resentment move in cycles, leaving much to regret when a promising reconciliation is cut short by the tragedy that led us into his extended flashback, and which now sombrely greets us as we return to the present. Music was the language of Stig and Marta’s love, and so too is it the expression of Sönderby’s great sorrow, poured out in the final rendition of the film’s leitmotif that has followed the lovers through their relationship – ‘Ode to Joy’. It is from that symphony where the film gets its title, and where the great conductor finds profound inspiration to reflect on Marta’s passing.

“It’s about joy, you see. Not the joy expressed in laughter… or the joy that says “I’m happy”. What I mean is a joy so great, so special, that it lies beyond pain and boundless despair. It’s a joy beyond all understanding. I can’t explain it any better.”

Sönderby is only partially right here – perhaps he can explain it better, just not through words. Joy is a strange way to describe Stig’s state of mind in this moment, but within that final piece of classical music there is a complex mixture of sadness, tenderness, regret, and pride among so many other emotions, each one unfolding across his face as his son sits in the auditorium and watches him play. Bergman’s tribute to artistic expressions that speak directly to the human soul resonate loudly through these final minutes of visual and musical orchestrations, each one harmonising to acutely pinpoint the intersection of love, tragedy, and a wistful longing for happiness that was always taken for granted.

To Joy is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Thirst (1949)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 23min

The austere, psychological fantasies that Ingmar Bergman would explore at the height of his filmmaking career were still a long way off for him in 1949, and yet even so, the uneasy flashbacks of Thirst still bring a faintly nightmarish edge to the festered love at its centre. This contempt between married spouses would continue as a source of fascination for him in later projects like Scenes from a Marriage, and although there is nothing here quite on the level of that domestic epic, the vitriol that Rut and Bertil spit at each other is vicious nonetheless. These “prisoners in chains” are bound to each other in sickness and in health, and as they ride a train through a war-ravaged Europe, old heartbreaks rise to the surface, splitting our focus between their parallel traumas and nostalgic affairs.

Given how much of Thirst is spent following these alternating perspectives, it takes a fair bit of time for their context in the present day to emerge, and there is additionally some formal messiness in Bergman’s narrative construction. Specifically within Bertil’s memories, many scenes take place around his widowed mistress, Viola, where he is altogether absent. As a character though, she is a powerful testament to the failing of a patriarchal culture on many levels, from her struggling to stay afloat financially following the death of her husband, to the manipulative abuse of her psychiatrist Dr. Rosengren, thereby creating an opening for former ballerina Valborg to seduce her away from the world of men. Almost like a mirror held up to the opening scene of Bergman’s previous film, this young woman approaches the edge of a pier with the intent to drown herself, but where Port of Call’s Berit was unsuccessful, there is no one around to rescue Viola.

The camera only follows her so far though, eventually resting on the still reflection of a ship in the water, and just as the ripples of her jump gently disturb its image, so too does the impact of her suicide reverberate through Thirst with a haunting melancholy. It does not just occupy the thoughts of Bertil, whose love for her persists, but it also leaves a hopeless void in this allegory of Europe’s lost innocence. Outside the train windows in the present day, crowds of men and women whose lives have been disrupted by war and poverty reach up to the passengers onboard, begging for food scraps. Rut and Bertil may placate their requests, but it isn’t long before they are speeding off on the train again, submerged back in their own drama.

It is frequently in these intimate scenes of claustrophobic interiors where Bergman’s filmmaking flourishes, forcing the camera into delicately framed close-ups of his actors as they pour their frustrations out onto each other and themselves. As Dr Rosengren imposes himself upon Viola, Bergman shoots the profile of her insecure expression with his face behind hers, composing a distinctive shot that he would most famously return to later in Persona. Here though, the camera rotates around their heads in an enchanting swirl, moving into a shot of duelling faces on either side of the frame before letting Viola dominate the image, reflecting the scene’s shift in power dynamics with a single, fluid take. Similarly, the lighting of the train scenes also manifest the deep derision shared between Bertil and Rut, casting shadows and the train’s blinking lights across faces as the foundation of their misery surfaces.

“I hate you so much that I want to live just to make your life miserable. Raoul was brutal. You took away my lust for life.”

There is no downplaying the agony of Rut’s past, which saw her become another man’s mistress and suffer a botched abortion, and yet it is her current husband whose insistent longing for the deceased Viola which torments her the most. Conversely, it is Rut’s own history with her past lover Raoul which plagues Bertil’s mind too, setting up a pair of intangible obstacles that neither can move past. Both are at an impasse, taking snarky jabs at each other by complaining that “There’s too much nudity in this marriage,” but also degrading themselves with harsh, demeaning language.

“Nothing takes root in me. I’m all filth and sludge inside.”

The final, psychological departure from reality that sees Bertil kill his wife with a bottle to the head does not spill over in a moment of anger, but even more chillingly punctuates a cold silence. Once again, close-ups are Bergman’s chosen aesthetic in framing this violent outburst, though in separating them into their own shots there is a disconnection in the action. We see Bertil’s slow turn and sudden attack, and we also see Rut collapse a few seconds later, but the surreal discontinuity in the framing and delay hints at the action taking place purely within a dark, eerie dream state.

With both their previous love lives lying in tatters, further destruction is not the answer for these loveless partners. Perhaps these is a tinge of studio interference in the happy reconciliation that comes about, but if this couple is to represent the disrepair of Europe in the wake of war, then their decision to pursue a more hopeful future together at least expresses an optimism for the continent’s social and economic recovery. For Bergman, it is also slightly closer to the magical realism he would pioneer in future decades, even if it is not fully present yet in his narrative. Still, his dynamic camerawork and framing is enough to visually manifest the wistful temptation to escape into one’s mind from grim realities, especially when that reality is a morose, resentful marriage.

Thirst is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.