Today I’m going back to some of the earliest films directed by the great director Ingmar Bergman. Crisis was his directorial debut in 1946 (he had written one previous film, Torment, directed by Alf Sjoberg). The opening narration tells you this is not going to be an explosive film, but is a small drama about a small town. From that intro, we meet Nelly, a beautiful young woman who wants to move to the big city. She’s been raised by a woman named Muttie, but is now about to be whisked off to a new adventure by her long-abandoned mother Jenny. However, Jenny’s young boyfriend Jack sets his eyes on Nelly. Once in the city, Jenny finds the grass was most definitely not greener. She returns to Mutti and the small town, and a man whose been waiting patiently for her love. You can tell Crisis was made by a young director. The plot is OK, but the actors are one dimensional and the direction and setting feel haphazard. There are however a few peaks at tormented characters, something obviously Bergman would go on to explore in depth later.
A Ship Bound for India came a year later in 1947, and this one is much better. Johannes is a sailor returning home after 7 years at sea. He has come to find Sally, the love he left behind all those years before. He finds her as a defeated, sad woman, and he falls asleep that night thinking about the events that got them there. As a young man, Johannes was tormented by his father Blom, captain of a salvage ship. Blom treated his family poorly but dreamed of leaving them for the beautiful young dancer Sally. Sally however doesn’t allow herself to really get attached to anyone, for fear of being dropped herself one day. She loves Johannes but refuses to admit it to herself, because of that fear of abandonment. Blom really only cares about himself, and his fear of approaching mortality. When Johannes finally stands up to him, all of the family secrets are laid bare. Johannes tells Sally he will return for her one day when he is able, and departs for the high seas. His return seven years later is the culmination of that promise. This is a much better film, with improved camera work, more fleshed out characters, and an emotional plot. It feels more like a Bergman film.
Port of Call is a rare dud from Bergman, in fact, I’d go so far as to say it probably would never be shown today if not for its famous director. It is about a former sailor who falls in love with a woman with a past, a woman who’s been in and out of reformatory, but seems to be a good girl deep down. She just comes from a bad family and keeps ending up in the wrong situation. The actors here are all wooden, and the girl playing Berit is really just a pretty face. It’s one of those movies that I’ll be hard pressed to remember a year from now. If Bergman took a step forward in A Ship Bound for India, he took a step back on Port of Call. It’s not entirely unexpected; at this time in his beginning career, he was under contract by the studio to pump out 2-3 movies a year, and not all are going to be good, or even decent films.
This was the first of Bergman’s early films that I thought was a really, really good movie. Thirst is an engaging, well developed story about interconnected lives. It begins in a Hitchcock-like suspenseful style, with a woman, Ruth, who seems to be not exactly sane. We see a few rapid scenes, showing her interactions with others, and the viewer don’t know what is a flashback and what is current day. As the film settles into a flow, we find that Ruth is married to Bertil, but each is haunted by a past relationship. Ruth once had a fling with a married military man, but when she got pregnant, he forced her into an abortion which left her infertile. Meanwhile, Bertil remembers an older widow he was with named Viola. Viola herself suffered from a mental breakdown, and when she was approached for a female fling by a dancer (Valborg, who the viewer realizes is a friend of Ruth), Viola commits suicide. Thirst shows Bergman learning who he is as a director, and focusing on the female psyche for the first time. It came out in 1949, so he was quickly approaching the hits of the ’50’s that would make Bergman a household name in Sweden, and an art-house hit across the world.
To Joy is about two violinists, Stig and Martha, who fall in love, get pregnant, get married, and have a bumpy life together. Stig has aspirations of becoming a renowned soloist, but doesn’t have the skill to do so. Together, the couple have a rough marriage. Stig brings his frustrations at work home with him, which leads to strife with Martha. Eventually they decide that she’d be better off living away from the city, and once she’s gone, Stig starts to stray. Unfortunately for Stig, he doesn’t realize how much he loves Martha until it is too late. A very emotional film, it shows Bergman as a young director coming into his own.
Jons Movie Takes 