Brink of Life" was shown as part of the exhaustive Bergman retrospective organized by the National Gallery of Art, American Film Institute, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The film curator at the NMWA paired it insightfully with "Karin's Face (1984)," a film of stills about Bergman's mother.
As the two previous reviewers have observed, this little-mentioned film is a classic of its own, dealing with a most challenging and difficult phase of life undeservedly neglected by director...
We trace the journey of an elderly professor who is traveling to receive an honor for a life of accomplishment and service. Along the way he confronts the lack of success in his human relationships as opposed to the success he has enjoyed professionally. A string of encounters with the past and with iconic people he meets gradually bring the contrast into focus for the viewer.
I particularly liked the subtle and intelligent storytelling in this film. He tells us before the credits that he is ju...
This classic is filled with a lot of memorable images - from the opening scenes on the seashore to the effective concluding shots, creative thoughts are combined with some fine camera work. There are several significant or interesting questions raised by the characters - from the imagery of the "Seventh Seal" in Revelation, to their simple but important concerns about eternity - but it is the way that the visuals play off of the ideas that make the movie so worthwhile.
The recreation of the med...
This was director Ingmar Bergman's break-through film, the winner of the 1956 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the first of his many internationally acclaimed films. The story is a time honored one, referencing the same tradition of romantic complications found in Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and Rostand's LA RONDE: every one is either in love with or married to the wrong person.
A famous actress with two very different lovers invites both, their wives, and the son of one love...
In Stockholm, the fashion photographer Susanne Frank (Eva Dahlbeck) misses her married lover Henrik Lobelius (Ulf Palme) that lives in Gothenburg with his wife and children, and the naive twenty years old model Doris (Harriet Andersson) has a troubled relationship with her boy friend Palle Palt (Sven Lindberg). Susanne schedules a session of photo shoots in Gothenburg with Doris, and once there, she calls Henrik for an encounter. Meanwhile, Doris meets an elegant middle age gentleman on the stre...
Though not exactly a comedy in the usual sense of the word this more rewarding than any movie full of laughs but devoid of substance. I don't think Bergman's movies can be easily classed under narrow genres, even the lightest are quite complex. This movie in spite of its light touch poses a series of problems related to marriage and its shortcomings and what happens when the flames start to die etc. I don't really communicate personally with all these issues as I am sure others do. But the atmos...
Sawdust and Tinsel- or The Swedish Master, or The Naked Night, take your pick on a title- is about a man who can't stand himself in his profession, but loves it so much at the same time: the low-brow sensibility of it, the wildness, the freedom to cut it loose with drink or with mad gimmicks during a show, and abandon of the rules when confronted with the law. But he also has a love whom he has his problems with, and her with him as well, leading to an infidelity drama that plays out harshly. In...
Monika is going for the Summer of her life. No longer a child she dreams of freedom and living the most of her own existence. She finds herself in the middle of a struggle between her tedious family life and work and the pungent idealistic thoughts that cross her mind. When she finds an ally- Harry, the love between them comes spontaneously and the escape from their misfortune seems possible. And then the summer comes to heat their naked skins as they reveal their bodies and souls to find the fr...
Early Bergman, and from the onset it is clear an artist is at work. The first conversation piece, with all 5 waiting women in the same room, is a long shot approaching 4 minutes, with various of the women talking. There are also already some typical Bergman postures, with one woman talking intensely and the one next to her staring vapidly past her downwards, seemingly lost in her own inner world. All that in well and good, but as soon as I heard the first monotonous monologue from the mother, he...
I watched this movie and was transported, both in transports of delight, and mentally transported back to Sweden, where I had a brief but intense love-affair.
The scenes with the two young lovers, meeting and playing on the lake, with the little boat, with the dog, "Squabble", picking berries, were so finely drawn on screen, they could have been transcribed from my memories...
Cinema can be magic, and cinema like this can make one's life more wonder-filled
对伯格曼这部早期作品有些失望。故事平凡而无力，在剪辑上也存在问题：一处在19"施蒂格和玛塔在海边礁石上，当施蒂格躺下时；一处在33"施蒂格和玛塔上台阶时。如果还有我觉得满意的地方，那就是有人通知正在演奏的施蒂格，告诉他妻子生下两个孩子时，画面与音乐的配合。
egentligen åstadkommit. Carl Björkman (DN) erinrade sig Weyler Hildebrands farser från förkrigstiden, Harry Schein (BLM) kände sig säker på att upphovsmännen försökte plagiera hollywoodska agentthrillrar, Nils Beyer (MT) menade att uppsåtet var gott -- att varna svenska folket för att låta dupera sig av totalitära regimer -- men verklighetsillusionen brast; Ny Dags recensent satte filmen i kategorin nazistisk sovjethets.
Björkman ville inte ta filmen på allvar: "Med sina mystiska gangsters i St...
Tö/ / Ingmar Bergman
电影由Birgit Tengroth编写一些故事串连而成。在1946年，神情不安的芭蕾舞演员Rut陪伴他的丈夫Bertil结束了环意大利的学术访问，回到了瑞典。他们在巴塞尔(瑞士西北部城市，在莱茵河畔)的旅店房间里和火车上发生了争吵，他们把食物扔给了窗外饥饿的德国难民。无意间，他们听到了几个瑞典牧师关于婚姻的几句妙语，最终他们两人重修和好。电影插入了一段回忆，讲述了Rut以前和一个中年官员Raoul 的一段罗曼史，以及她随后发生的流产，和开始了芭蕾舞的演艺生涯。电影还插入了一段看起来毫不相关的故事，发生在寂静的斯德哥尔摩仲夏。中年寡...
This is an astonishing piece of work proving that Bergman had a clearly defined set of aesthetic ideas from very early in his career. The idea of the silence of god, the meaningless nature of life and consequently (and tragically) of art, the communication blocks dominating most of human relations and the epiphanic character of dreams. What distinguishes this movie most is it's very elaborated construction. For its 75 minutes the movie consists of layers upon layers of meaning that tend to make ...
Hamnstad" is one of the rare Swedish films focusing on family life.Its uniqueness is due to the fact that it has an eclectic mix of serious themes. These themes include bitter, harsh realities like abortion,broken home, correctional house etc. Bergman has deftly portrayed the dreary lives of its two lonely protagonists : Gosta and Berit. For this purpose, he has chosen a small provincial port town where nothing much happens. This film is a good record of how gloomy the life in Sweden (Europe) du...
