Random Thoughts

Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende). Ingmar Bergman. 1955. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

“A romantic comedy by Ingmar Bergman.” Bergman was depressed but needed money, so he made this little masterpiece, which was also his international break-through, I think. It won prizes in Cannes and everything.

Gunnar Björnstrand’s glued-on comedy beard is rather disturbing, though.

“The last three years I’ve turned 29, which is nothing for a woman of my age.”

It’s a kinda perfect movie. You have to wonder about what’s going on at the set, though. Bergman’s relationship with Harriet Andersson (playing a significant part) was over, and Harriet’s sister, Bibi, makes her first appearance in a Bergman film. (They’d later become involved.)

It’s all so complicated. But we have this.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Princess!?

Such lighting.

Woman Without a Face (Kvinna utan ansikte). Gustaf Molander. 1947. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.

We’re diverging from the chronological Bergman thing again and skipping back from 1956 to 1947: To this Bergman-scripted, but Gustaf Molander-directed thing.

It’s weird being back in this period again after the 1955-56 streak of mature-ish Bergman films. It’s all artifice and stilted lines again.

It’s fun to see Alf Kjellin again, though, and it’s an interestingly convoluted story.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Behind Dreams (Bakomfilm Kvinnodröm). Ingmar Bergman. 1954. ⭐⭐★★★★.

This is the behind the scenes documentary for Dreams: The first one of these that were created for Bergman films.

We get reminiscences by an unnamed female voice that says things like “that’s a lot of blurry images; I think those should be edited out”. It’s hard to disagree, but it’s fun. We get interesting titbits like how the lighting techs sometimes fell down from their perches on top of the sets (because it was really hot up there (and they drank a lot)).

It’s unclear whether Bergman was involved with the making of this or not. It doesn’t have an imdb page or anything, but the voiceover seems to imply that these were all shot by Bergman himself.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Dreams (Kvinnodröm). Ingmar Bergman. 1955. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐★.

After the success of A Lesson in Love, you’d think that making the follow-up (with basically the same cast and crew) would be easy enough. But it just doesn’t have the same sparkle.

While it isn’t as effortlessly brilliant as the previous movie, it does demonstrate that Bergman the director has found his own language. Gone are the obvious swipes from Italian neorealist cinema and the Hitchcock scenes: It’s all Bergman all the time now.

The actors are wonderful as usual, but the Eva Dahlbeck character’s storyline seems kinda incomprehensible because it’s impossible to understand why she’s obsessing over a man that seems completely unremarkable.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.