Random Thoughts

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.

A Lesson in Love (En lektion i kärlek). Ingmar Bergman. 1954. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Yay. Eva Dahlbeck and Gunnar Björnstrand (Sweden’s Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant) are back in this delicious comedy (which is Bergman’s first real comedy). Harriet Andersson does a wonderful performance as a tomboy 15-year-old, too.

It’s a thoroughly entertaining film.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas afton). Ingmar Bergman. 1953. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

Finally cinematographer Sven Nykvist is on board (for part of the film). Unfortunately, he doesn’t return to the fold until 1960, I think…

This film perhaps marks the beginning of the end of the end of the “Early Bergman” stretch of films? You’ve got Harriet Andersson and Gunnar Björnstrand, so you just need Eva Dahlbeck back…

The picaresque bits are very Italian, but the obsessions are mostly pure Bergman.

It was a box office bomb at the time. It’s well regarded now (in the risible Empire best-of list, it’s the highest-rated Bergman film), but I’m kinda unimpressed watching it now. Secrets of Women, for instance, seems like a more well-put-together film to me…

But, yes, there are some awesome scenes here.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Eva. Gustaf Molander. 1948. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.

This film didn’t arrive in time for its rightful place in this blog series. Shame! Shame! So cast your mind back from 1953 to the long gone past of 1948…

This one is not directed by Bergman, but the script is by him and it’s based on one of his short stories, and features basically all of Bergman’s usual actors. It’s very Bergman The Early Yearsesque.

Lots of lovely performances, and lots of fun scenes, but the last half is rather over cooked, and the last scenes are rated the coveted Two Continuously Rolling Eyes award.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.