Category: Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 40min

By the time Ingmar Bergman came around to directing his fifth feature film in 1948, Italy’s neorealist movement was in full, depressing swing, taking cameras to the streets of cities to capture the real struggles of ordinary people. Much like his previous works, romantic melodrama is the basis of Port of Call’s main storyline, and yet there is also an authentic grit here inspired by the Italians, wrestling with harsher realities of child abuse, abortion, and failed welfare services. In choosing to shoot on authentic docks and harbours, Bergman establishes his setting as a working-class port town, imbuing Berit’s troubles with a more nuanced sorrow connected to her helpless, abject poverty. As she stands on the edge of the water in the opening scene, ships, ropes, and steel beams form a harsh, industrial backdrop to her attempted suicide, offering little salvation in its cold visage besides the one kind sailor who dives in after her.

This first interaction between the two future lovers comes just at the right time for both. Where Berit was ready to give up on life, Gösta has recently returned from a long voyage and decided to settle down on the docks. A second chance encounter in a crowded dance hall pushes them even closer together, though building new relationships is not so easy when old ones continue to be the foundation of lingering trauma.

Flashbacks to those defining points of Berit’s childhood and adolescence are smoothly integrated throughout Port of Call, and are first brought in with a smooth match cut of her face dissolving into her younger self, lying awake in bed as her parents quarrel in the background. To them, she is simply a prop to be pulled back and forth in arguments with no regard for her perspective, and when she becomes a teenager, she is cruelly locked out of her own home for missing curfew. As a result, “I love you” is now an impossible phrase for her to speak, let alone understand.

“I hate those words. Everyone says them without meaning them.”

Bergman’s empathy towards his characters has been evident ever since his debut film, though the creative framing of close-ups which he employs here and would later turn into his visual trademark in the 1950s lands that sensitive compassion with even greater power and grace. Here, he often comes at the faces of his actors from oblique angles, tilting them away from the camera to catch their outline and nestling them against each other in bed, thereby crafting a beautiful intimacy between characters. Conversely, we often find him rupturing that tenderness with a terrible loneliness, using a splendid depth of field to reveal a disconnection amongst the girls in Berit’s reformation school, isolating her even further from an uncaring society.

Even beyond her past, there is a surprising cruelty in Gösta as well, who coldly spurns her upon learning of her previous relationships with other men. Like all of those, this does not seem to be a romance that will last, making the falsely optimistic note it ends feel particularly unearned. It is but an off note in an otherwise accomplished film for Bergman though, who at this point in his career is observing and learning from his fellow contemporary filmmakers. As well as the neorealist influence that sees him bring backgrounds to life with the action of moving cranes, the occasional montage of ships and docks between scenes feels slightly reminiscent of Yasujiro Ozu’s characteristic pillow shots, building a rhythm in transitions that offer a soothing quietude. Sailors and labourers may fill this port with bustling activity, yet the isolation of Bergman’s characters frequently overrides that liveliness, setting in a bleak tone that sees old traumas surface and threaten the chance for new beginnings.

Port of Call is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 38min

Underlying many of Ingmar Bergman’s greatest films is a psychological intrigue seeking to understand his flawed, complex characters, but even in his early melodrama, A Ship Bound for India, his development of a Freudian love triangle carries power in its twisted relationship dynamics. Though the biological matriarch of the Blom family is present in this story, Kapten Blom’s decision to integrate his mistress, Sally, into this clan of sailors immediately sets her up as a surrogate parent of sorts. With her being several decades younger than Blom, the affection is mostly one-sided, and further complications arise when she begins to strike up a romance with his son. Naturally, Johannes’ aroused interest in Sally drives a wedge between him and his father, and while there is no incest to be found here, the love and disdain that he directs towards both parental figures makes for a knotty, Oedipal-adjacent dynamic.

Hanging over this story is an air of fleeting transience, embodied literally by the ships sailing from one dock to the next, and formally weaved into the narrative’s structure as a single, extended flashback, nostalgically yearning for missed connections. Johannes’ incidental run-in with Sally seven years after their brief romance motivates this recollection, and despite the appearance of a random voiceover that we never hear again, the transition is effectively made with melancholy rumination.

It is unclear whether A Ship Bound for India was shot on Bergman’s home island of Fårö like many of his later films, but given the rocky beaches and dreary landscapes on display, it is very much possible. His camerawork is more refined than ever at this point in his career, displaying a depth of field in his blocking that paints out the meaningful character dynamics within its small ensemble, as well as an array of beautiful compositions, such as one particularly striking shot staggering silhouettes of dock workers against a grey sky.

The giant windmill set piece is a significant highlight in this aspect, as Bergman delivers a magnificent establishing shot of the wooden structure rising into an overcast sky and dwarfing the two lovers, before moving into its rough-hewn, timber interior where divisions are visually drawn between them out of log bannisters and sticks. These obstructions are present all through their quarrel, but it is only when they fall into each other’s arms and finally kiss that Bergman unites them in the frame, crafting a delicate, romantic composition.

Realising that Johannes is the only man who loves her without wanting anything in return, Sally all but turns away from Blom, whose hostile behaviour worsens. The ageing sailor feels his youth and vitality seeping away from him, and with the knowledge that his eyesight is going too, he pugnaciously lashes out at those around him. His long-suffering wife can’t wait for the day to come that he is completely blind, believing that maybe then he will settle down a little, but we can see instead the opposite is true. Upon discovering that Sally has left him for Johannes, he impulsively makes an attempt on his own son’s life, cutting off his air supply while he is scuba diving. As his cranking of the pump slows to a halt, Bergman ominously cuts to his shadow, revealing his malicious turn through the darkness he casts on the wharf. Likewise, when the time comes for the police to arrest him, he locks himself in his murky, low-lit bedroom, though this time Bergman hangs on his guilt in a long take, flashing a slow, pulsating light across face.

Johannes may not be directly responsible for his father’s death, but the Oedipal implications are hard to ignore. With his family virtually destroyed by his relationship with Sally, and his work summoning him to India, all they have to hinge their hopes on is the assurance that he will one day return and take her away for good. The pain of the past is still raw, but if there was ever a time to fulfil this promise, it is the present, where fate has drawn them back together on the same docks where they met. The metaphor of ships passing in the night is practically begging to be acknowledged in this tale of romance, trauma, and healing, and under Bergman’s assured direction, it manifests with a light touch of wistful longing.

A Ship Bound for India is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 35min

Ingmar Bergman screenplays are rarely so blunt as they were during his first few years of filmmaking where character dynamics tilted towards melodrama, and yet his second feature, It Always Rains on Our Love, wraps up its candid message of acceptance in a surprisingly sweet, magical realist fable. Perhaps if it came out even a year later, one might have even been tempted to draw a direct line of influence from It’s a Wonderful Life, so it is somewhat of a coincidence that these two films were both released in 1946 given the formal similarities. Never mind the brief sojourn into a Christmastime setting, or even the guardian angel narrator watching over his troubled protagonists. Just as George Bailey is met with misfortune and failure at every turn leading up to his epiphany, so too does it seem as if the entire world is united in its torment of young couple David and Maggi, keeping them from starting new lives together away from the trauma of their past.

Quite curiously, the only person willing to come to their defence is an elderly man neither know on any personal level, and yet who somehow knows them intimately. In the opening minutes, he stands among a group of street pedestrians huddled beneath umbrellas, and as they escape from the rain onto a bus, he remains standing alone on the sidewalk. His address to the camera arrives as more than just a knowing wink, as he explicitly foreshadows his own place in the story, offers commentary on its sequence of events, and even refers to Maggi as his “leading character.” Later when David hits rock bottom in a bar, the mystery man makes contact with him for the first time to offer words of wisdom, though he makes an even greater impact in the final act when, seemingly out of nowhere, he takes on the mantle of the couple’s defence attorney.

Our narrator’s appearances through the film are sparse though, as Bergman is sure not to rely on him too much through David and Maggi’s navigation of a complicated, judgemental world. The train station where they quite literally run into each other marks a crossroad in both their lives, with both searching for fresh starts. Where David is reintegrating into society after spending time in prison, Maggi has recently fallen pregnant, and neither have any family to fall back on. They are far from perfect people, especially given David’s initial reaction to learning about Maggi’s baby, and yet quarrels are always followed by real remorse and reconciliation between the two.

The true villain in this piece can’t be nailed down to any single character, but it is rather the mounting difficulties of living in a prejudiced society which congeal into a single menace. While they dream of a quiet, stable life, they find neighbours accusing them of theft, welfare services threatening to separate them, and bureaucratic officials evicting them from their own home. The stillbirth of Maggi’s baby adds yet a greater pain to their misery, denying them even a target to aim their anger at. Some odd comedic interludes revolving around their neighbours don’t quite cohere with everything else going on, but Bergman is otherwise confident in his storytelling, building towards a court case that condenses every nasty jab we have witnessed into a barrage of cruel attacks.

It Always Rains on Our Love contains a good deal of handsome photography, especially in its wide range of elegantly composed establishing shots, though it isn’t until we enter the courtroom that its visual style manifests more fully. Minor antagonists from throughout the film step up to the witness stand and deliver their testimony in close-ups to the camera, and Bergman moves through them rapidly in a montage set against the flipping pages of a law book, cornering his protagonists into an inescapable dead end. As such, the return of the guardian angel is timely, making for a nice formal comparison against virtually every other character. He is virtuous and kind, but not without a sense of humour, demonstrating an intangible goodness in the universe existing beyond humanity’s trivial prejudices. The perspective he offers is straightforward but sincere, simply asking the world’s imperfect youths are afforded a little more grace.

“That’s what this whole business is all about. It’s about two people who would say ‘Nothing concerns us’ because they’ve been told ‘You’re no concern of ours.’ On the other hand, we have their love for each other. Their efforts, albeit awkward, to fit into society. We should look upon that with favour.”

The elderly man’s final, parting gift to them marks the film with particularly poetic bookends, as Bergman ties back in the motif of rain from the opening scene, pouring a dour gloom on top of our characters. This time though, they possess their guardian angel’s umbrella. They may never see him again, but he has passed on the wisdom they need to carve out their own place in a bleak world, and persevere through whatever weather it casts down on them. Bergman would go on to write and direct more complex dramas than It Always Rains on Our Love, and yet the touch of fantasy he injects into this fable of abject misery is charming nonetheless, formally rounding out a heartfelt call for compassion towards society’s outcasts.

It Rains On Our Love is not currently available to stream in Australia.