Social mores move with the times...

Port of Call (Hamnstad, Swedish; 1948)

Director: Ingrid Bergman

The reason I thought that this movie is of value is that it depicts how much our society has changed in just about seventy years. Even though Sweden was regarded as a liberal country then, we realise that they still held many conservative values which by today's standards would be considered archaic.

Probably, for the first time, taboo topics like suicides, promiscuity and abortions are openly discussed. This must be something new for the post-World War 2 modern world.

Berit is seen jumping off a wharf, to be rescued by a sailor, Gösta, who had decided to call his sailing days quits. They develop a relationship. Slowly, we are told of Bertha's past. She is a disturbed young lady who had a troubled childhood. Growing with a strict mother and frequently quarrelling parents, she yearned to find freedom. One day, a teenage Berit is locked outside her apartment when she returns late from an outing. She runs away from home, lives in with a man and is rescued by social service. That starts the cascade of reform school, associated as a 'bad' girl, exposure to other girls with bohemian ideas about life and a few bad relationships that she later regrets. Her past reputation haunts her work as a machine operator in a factory. Colleagues are not precisely polite with their conversations and conduct.

Soon, she opens her heart to Gösta about her checkered past. With such a tainted history, the question is whether he is able to accept her as she is?

Only then do we, citizens of the 21st century, realise how the world has changed. From a time when chastity and virginity were held in such esteem, the society now views maidenhood something like a trade transaction in a garage sale, with its errors and omissions.

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The curse of memory?

Thirst (Törst, a.k.a Three Strange Loves, Swedish; 1949)
Director: Ingmar Bergman.

Do you really know what we want in our lives?  Are we dreaming up something and spending our whole lives trapped in a nightmare attempting to achieve the impossible? When mores in the society used to be so strict, perhaps it gave a certain amount of sanity to the general population. With empowerment and the decline in needing to conform, people started doing things as their wish. Happiness and self-contentment is the end-point. The problem is that the quenching of this thirst is an ever-elusive unattainable goal. 

The film, which is quite revolutionary at this time, in its cinematography and storyline is typical of Bergman's movies. It speaks of things that are considered taboo in the society at that time- suicide, infidelity, lesbianism and depression. It revolves around three love stories which are somewhat inter-related. It is narrated from the point of view of Rut, who is returning from her Italian vacation with her thrifty husband, Bertil, who counts every penny that they spent together. Their relationship is not really fantastic with constant bickering. Rut is frequently moody and nags most of the time. During their long train journey return home, the unhappy Rut reflects on the things that she has had. She used to be an up-and-coming ballet dancer who had an affair with an abusive married man. He scooted off at the first news of her pregnancy. After undergoing a complicated termination of pregnancy which doomed her to infertility, she yearns to be a mother. Bertil had a baggage of his own. He had previously married a widow, Viola, who nowhere really got over her deceased husband and needed therapy.

In another flashback, we see Viola being treated by a psychiatrist who could easily be labelled as a whacko himself. She runs away from the therapist's office only to meet a former schoolmate, Valborg. Now Valborg used to be Rut's confidantè in her ballet school when they were terrorised by a fierce instructor. 

The unstable Viola was overwhelmed by Valborg's unabashed romantic confrontations. It proved too much for her that Viola committed suicide by jumping off a pier.

Meanwhile, Rut-Bertil's shaky marriage gets more bizarre. Unable to stand the wife, Bertil actually has thoughts of throwing her off the moving train and at another instance, whacking her at the back of the head with the end of a beer bottle. 

It ends with a happy note with both parties secretly promising to work harder at making the marriage work.

Maybe our ability to remember things is a curse. Despite the leaps of progress we have made with our increase in our cognitive function over the aeons, in the emotional field,  our inability to forget our bitter experience impedes our desire to put our past behind and move on. Our daunting histories keep bringing up trapped like a rat whose feet are stuck in sticky glue. The more it tries to entangle itself, a bigger mess it creates for itself.

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Not so touching...

The Touch (1971)

Directed by: Ingmar Bergman

This is one of Bergman's movies that bombed in the box office. Perhaps because its storyline is somehow bizarre, but then it does not create the kind of cerebral exercise that his films generally generate. It is said that the story is self-explanatory with a sort of poetic justice attached to it. The audiences are left as passive absorbers of the narration.

Andreas, a doctor, (Max Von Sydow) and Karin (Bibi Anderson), a homemaker are happily married with 2 preteen daughters.

Andreas invites his patient, David, for dinner. David, an American archaeologist, was in town to excavate an ancient statue of Mother Mary. Slowly, for no particular reason, Karin, a devoted mother starts a scandalous affair with David. We soon discover that David is a neurotic, abusive individual with baggage of disturbed childhood growing escaping the Holocaust.

Pretty soon, Karin (and David) become obsessed with their relationship, acting like teenagers in love. Her husband and children discover her clandestine activity, and on top of that, she is pregnant.

The irony of the whole scenario is how Andrea reacts to the news of her affair. He states that they should be civilised about the entire issue and go separate ways.

I thought that to be civilised means to understand one responsibility and to respect that respect should be reciprocated. Unfortunately, more often than not, to be civilised is often construed as having total freedom to express oneself, emphasising more on individual needs than the consensus of the age-old, albeit arcane beliefs. These appear primitive, but at least it managed to maintain equilibrium and assigns duties and responsibilities to one for their action. No one is neglected and is somebody's headache! To be uncivilised means to be not man (or woman) to wise up to your duties or to own up to the mess you created.

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Life, a living hell?

Prison (Fängelse, 1949)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Another early offering #6 from Bergman. It is a short film which has a very dark background, setting and story-wise, noir like. It is precursor to many of his later movie with dark themes like the silence of God, mental illness and the uncertainty of life. Here, it looks at the trappings of life.

A movie shooting is in progress. The director's old Maths professor who had just been released from mental asylum meets him to propose his bizarre story for consideration to be made into a film. The story narrates how Satan comes to Earth to declare it as Hell itself! The team politely declines the story. The happenings over the next few days actually makes everyone thinking. Perhaps, life on Earth is already a living Hell!

Tomas, a screenwriter, of late has been consuming more and more alcohol than he should. During one of his stuporous states, he suggested to his fiancé they should commit suicide together! Startled, the fiancé bolts for her life after knocking him out with the end of a wine bottle.

On the other side of town, a young prostitute, Birgitta, is pregnant. Her guardian promises to gives the baby for adoption. Birgitta is tormented in her guilt but feels helpless to expunge herself from her predicament. She longs for her lost childhood.

The baby was never given for adoption but was killed by Birgitta's pimp boyfriend and his partner. The police picks up the cue and are hot on her trail.

Tomas and Birgitta meet along the way. They find that they get along well but certain old memories from her past still torments her. The image of her dead child haunts her. She runs away from Tomas decides to continue her routine life.

The film crew realise that perhaps there is truth in the Maths professor's prophecy. Life on Earth has became tough for some, a real living Hell.

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The uncanny similarity?

The Magician (Ansiktet, a.k.a. The Face, Swedish; 1958)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
At first you wonder what the heck is happening. A group of travelling magicians are seen moving in a caravan back in the late 19th century Sweden. The leader of the team, Dr Vogler, an apparently mute magician has in his entourage, an assistant (an obviously lady masquerading as a man who later turned out to be his wife), a mysterious 200year old nanny, a stage coach driver, a helper named Tubal who actually just wants to settle down as a house husband are all mixed up in this hodge-podge of conmen who appear to be running from something.
As they go through a small town, they are stopped by police to be interviewed by a group of cynics. These cynics, The Police Superintendent, a doctor - an atheist and a man of science and a nobleman all interview them on the authenticity of their 'magic' acts.
The nobleman's wife is still mourning over the death of her son and was hoping to 'meet' her lost son through the magic man.
One by one the magician's antics was unravelled and the troop was humiliated.
The brooding Dr Vogler is also discovered not to be mute after all. The coach driver is hypnotised to kill Dr Vogler, so is everybody is made to think! The deceptive magician get the last laugh when he manages to frighten the living daylight of his detractors. He uses the body of another death man's body when the doctor decides to perform a post mortem! Can you imagine when he appears in flesh and blood?
In the end, events turn to a heady start. The magician is feted and glorified by the Swedish courts. They leave for the palace to be glorified.
You go on wondering... Who are these people, what are their relationship to each other? Then it strikes you! A person revered for his seemingly miraculous acts, awes many, is put to the test by sceptics, is killed and seen to arise from his death. He gives hope to others to anchor their trusts upon. He himself is sceptical of his capacities and thinks that everything is an illusion but gets glorified in the end. Does it not ring a bell?

One failure leads to another!

To Joy (Till glädje, Swedish; 1950)
Director: Ingrid Bergman

One of Bergman's early offerings, good nevertheless. Here it is not about the silence of Creator but rather of the complicated dynamics of family life, specifically man and wife and its complexities.
The film starts with a violinist being interrupted from performing when an important phone call comes in. The call is for Stig. He receives a rather bad news about the death of his wife in a kitchen accident. The story goes back to 7 years previously...
A rather timid man, Stig, is a violinist in a philharmonic orchestra. He soon develops feelings for the only female violinist, Martha, in the group. Even though there were other suitors, Martha decides to settle down with Stig for his simplicity and straightforwardness.
Stig has big plans for his career, being a soloist and playing in Stockholm. Unfortunately, his skills do not match his ambitions. One by one, things happen and the young man is more disheartened. Martha gets pregnant and he is drawn into a hasty marriage. Even though Martha is doting wife, Stig is still listless. Inadvertently, he outpours his resentments of his failure on his wife.
The seemingly loving couple can be seen slowly growing apart.
Along comes an acquaintance and his flirtatious young wife. In the heat of the moment, he caves in and an affair ensues.
Martha, upon discovering the liaison, leaves with kids (2 by then).
The separation and the discovery of the mess that the affair had brought him, he repents. Letters after letters, Martha and Stig get back together, with the kids too. And later, the accident...
The movie ends with his orchestra's rendition of Beethoven's classics.

Quotable quote: We second-raters also necessary. Without worker bees, no beehive!

Obstacles aplenty in life!

Stromboli (1950)

This neo-realistic Italian film sparked the affair between one of my favourite actresses and Italian director, Roberto Rossellini. This union ended with an out of wedlock baby, which ostracised Ingrid Bergman for years at the Hollywood level. A neo-realistic movie (Neorealismo) would be one where the location of the set is amongst the poor and its use of non-professional actors.

Here, in Stromboli, the setting is among a fishing community living on an island with a volcano. Coincidentally, it actually erupted during the shooting.

Even though it tells a story of a Lithuanian refugee who gets herself in a marriage of convenience to escape internment camp, it questions life and God at a deeper level. It narrates the harsh reality of getting hitched to someone totally different in values, beliefs, way of life, and how he lives.
Karin (Ingrid Bergman) finds herself living in a depilated house on an island with active volcanic activity. Her neighbours are unfriendly judgemental conservative old ladies. The youngsters have all left the scene. The only person she thought she could relate to is a parish priest whom she later discovers is not forthcoming with help as he is worried about what the rest of the community would think about him. Karin's husband, who promised to work hard to keep her happy, still abuses her after hearing bad-mouthing by some old ladies. She finds herself practically imprisoned on the island. She was 3 months pregnant by the time a volcanic eruption occurred.

After exhausting all other possible ways to escape, she does a treacherous climb over the volcanic hill which had just purged magma. This is where the highlight of the movie, with its questioning of the silence of God, albeit for a short time, happens. Karin cannot understand why after going through so much in her life, running from place to place displayed by the war, losing her loved ones in her family, enduring sexual assaults in the war, she still found no freedom! The usually strong Karin symbolically loses one by one her luggage, referring to her self values, stripping her down to the bare minimum till she cries her heart, and the film ends with the outcome hanging in the air; whether she abandons her journey and returns to her husband or escapes to her freedom...

Storm in the tea cup

Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas Afton,Swedish; 1953)

Life, has its up and down. Every now, a crisis builds up and disappears just as fast as it appears. At the time it materializes, it seem like the end of the world but then, with time, it finds a steady state and then it no longer is the big problem that it was previously.
This 1953 drama narrates the happenings around a travelling circus which stops at a town. The morale amongst the performers and its owner, Albert, is low as viewers' appreciation is low and income is measly.
Albert arrives at the town where his ex-wife and young sons who he left 3 years previously, lives. He now travels with a young pretty mistress performer, Anne.
Albert gets a idea of having a great parade to advertise their presence in town but their tattered costumes were nothing to show off. He decides to borrow costumes from a drama troupe in town. He approaches the director. What ensues is an interesting dialogue between two group of performers, one from the lowly circus performers and the egoistic drama actors.
The debonair main actor, Franz, catches the eye of Anne. In another scene, Anne is concerned about Albert's visit to his ex-wife's place. She is afraid that they may patch up again.

The ex-wife is however quite comfortable in her own life without Albert. The convenience store is that she is running is doing quite well and she is the main dealer of tobacco in her town. She is in fact in a much better shape finacially than Albert who left the family to run the circus. The ex-wife, Agda, categorically states that she enjoys her current freedom and is not ready to give it up for anything! She categorically implied that Albert was not welcomed there.
A distraught Albert discovers Anne sneaking out from the theatre and entering the goldsmith store on his way back. Despite his own plans to be a turncoat to their relationship, he accuses Anne of infidelity. In reality, Anne was turned on by the actor's charmed life and did bed him in exchange for jewelry which turned out to be worthless!
An duel ensued during a circus performance between a drunken Albert and Franz. Albert was humiliated and  bruised badly. Albert was contemplating suicide but instead shot an aging bear. There is another side story associated with the bear.  It is owned by Albert's confidante in the circus, the clown's wife. The wife once humiliated the clown by bathing nude by the beach just because she was wooed by some soldiers. The clown rescued his wife and forgave but Albert could not understand why.
Finally, the circus moves on to another town. Albert and Anne forgave each other and move on with life.
The film albeit being more than 60 years old and being black and white, give you the perspective of the circus from an angle never seen before. The views that we get are very close range.  Even at such an era, the female characters are quite liberated and they savour freedom.

We all grow old!

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A letter by Akira Kurosawa in 1988 that deserves to be read in full, as we grow older in 2014 ~

Dear Mr. Ingmar Bergman,

Please let me congratulate you upon your seventieth birthday. Your work deeply touches my heart every time I see it and I have learned a lot from your works and have been encouraged by them. I would like you to stay in good health to create more wonderful movies for us.

 
In Japan, there was a great artist called Tessai Tomioka who lived in the Meiji Era (the late 19th century). This artist painted many excellent pictures while he was still young, and when he reached the age of eighty, he suddenly started painting pictures which were much superior to the previous ones, as if he were in magnificent bloom. Every time I see his paintings, I fully realize that a human is not really capable of creating really good works until he reaches eighty.

A human is born a baby, becomes a boy, goes through youth, the prime of life and finally returns to being a baby before he closes his life. This is, in my opinion, the most ideal way of life.

I believe you would agree that a human becomes capable of producing pure works, without any restrictions, in the days of his second babyhood.

 
I am now seventy-seven (77) years old and am convinced that my real work is just beginning.

Let us hold out together for the sake of movies.

With the warmest regards,

Akira Kurosawa

 

On motherhood...

Nara Livet [1958, Swedish; Brink of Life(US), So Close to life(UK)]

Director: Ingmar Bergman

A drama which earned 1958 Cannes award for Best director and awards for Best Actress (all three main characters), this is a story of the concept of having children, the guilt, the acceptance and the problems associated with them. 

It narrates the occurrences in the maternity ward over a span of a day. 

Not every child is born in the world wanted, sometimes their loss wrecks relationship, other times so much hope is placed on them which leads to disappointed when expectation is not met!

The film starts with Cecilia Ellius, at three months' pregnancy being wheeled in to the ward after experiencing bleeding. A guilt stricken Cecilia has a miscarriage and blames herself for her predicament. She never wanted the child in the first place. Her husband too, in midst of completing his thesis was not really ready.

Mr and Mrs Ellius' relationship take a dive for the worst and are contemplating separation.

Cecilia, not a young person, feels that she is not fit to be a mum. She feels that at her age, solitude and loneliness just suits her fine.

Sharing her same room are two expectant mothers; Stinas Andersson, a first timer who had way past her due date and is waiting for the baby to pop out and Hjördis Petterson, a unmarried teenager whose boyfriend takes no responsibility of her pregnancy.

Stinas and her husband are so excited to receive the addition to the family and have made plans for the newborn. During visiting hours, the Anderssons discuss the baby's room and the paraphernalia that needs to be added.

Hjördis, on the other hand, was admitted as she was unwell and some time more to deliver. She is generally a frustrated young lady. She had left her mother's house as she could not see eye to eye with her. Her mother was displeased with her behaviour and they had parted on bad terms. Now, at ends' wit and lack of cash, she yearns to go back home but has no courage to face her mother.

In the meantime, later that night, Stinas goes into labour. Unfortunately, her big plans came tumbling. Complications during labour ended with untimely demise of loved child.

Hjördis laments her condition to the welfare officer who, herself subfertile, feels happy for her being pregnant and discouraged her to undergo a termination. Hjördis herself cannot understand she should be happy with her pregnancy as she has been a disappointment to everyone around her.

Along the movie, the three ladies do communicate and give each other support. Cecilia coaxes Hjördis to call her mother for encouragement. She picks up some courage to call her and to her astonishment she willingly asks her to return home. Together, they were going to usher the newborn.

Cecilia's problem is also solved when her sister-in-law gives her some words of wisdom. She resolves to mend her relationship with her kind husband.

Stina, on the other hand, was sleeping her woes away when the film ended.

It is all a package!

Autumn Sonata (Höstsonaten, Swedish;1978)
Director: Ingmar Bergman

How long can you go on blaming your parents for your behaviour, misbehaviour and emotional wellbeing? Sure, they provided the building blocks upon which you blobbed up to a multi-billion celled organism but did they not undergo all that psyche and physique altering 9 months. Then there were the phenomena of maternalistic instinct and the ever embracing comfortable bosoms that she provided. What about the story of the mother and the burning house? She would rush in to grab you from the raging fire even when the beam of the house is in the verge of collapse and even jump into a lake without knowing to swim, just to save you.

And the sleepless days and nights caring for you during your time of being under the weather. All these were done without any expectations of return. Now, you are big and strong and you blame all your failures and underachievements on her. And you say that it was not your choice to be born but your parents had a choice...

Bergman's movies as always make you think about life and you end up more confused than ever as there are no self-help and no directions in the voyage of life.

This film is the ramblings of a daughter to her seemingly aloof mother on the turn of events in her recent life and the horrible childhood that she had. Eva (Liv Ullman) is living with her pastor husband (Victor) in a lonely home and in a loveless relationship. Eva invites her mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman), to stay with her after the demise of her partner.
Charlotte, a renowned pianist, spend a lot of time during Eva's childhood away performing much to the chagrin of little Eva. The lonely days that Eva spent with her father, a quiet man, resulted in her in having a resentment to her mother. During the time the mother is back home, she is too busy practising for hours on end. Eva also has a sister, Helena, who has been inflicted with some neurological condition needing constant care, whom she feels her mother had abandoned when she left her in a nursing home.


Being constantly left alone, Eva had apparently befriended a guy who impregnated her. Charlotte decided that this would not do for an 18year old lass. The ensuing termination further infuriated the young mind against her mother.
Charlotte, this time around, has to face the bitter truth of reckoning. She finds that Eva had taken the severely handicapped Helena into her home to care for. Charlotte had to answer to her now-grown daughter, after staying away for 10 years. She had to 'face the music' to all her actions or inactions.
On her defence, Charlotte had to bring in the money and the joy and the attention that she received at the keys. Eva's marriage had also become unhappy after the drowning of her 4year old boy.

This showdown did not really end with a kiss-and-all forgotten kind of finale, however.
After the confrontation, the mother left the house after facing the demons. She is quite happy just corresponding with her daughter. Absence does not really make the heart grow fonder. Out of sight, out of mind is more like it. Time heals.

We do not choose our relationships, we do not choose to be born. The relationships and bonds that come to us can good, bad or ugly. It is up to us to sieve the favourable to the undesired ones and make the best that what life has in store for us...

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