Kris

Crisis marks Bergman's first film in the director's seat and serves as a promising, if often stumbling, showcase of the director's future prowess as a filmmaker. Guided under the steady mentorship of Victor Sjöström, a legendary Swedish director from the silent era, Bergman quietly made his appearance on the world stage with this melodramatic coming-of-age story on the loss of innocence. A layout of many of Bergman's future motifs is established here, with the conflict between family generations, the psychological tension that lies between men and women, and themes on existential despair being peppered throughout the film's run time. Some of his visual flair also begins to take root here, most famously of which being his refusal to capitulate to the classic shot-reverse-shot technique for scenes of dialogue. Bergman, with his fascination with the human face, would prefer to simply focus in on the face of a single actor throughout the length of a conversation, often to great dramatic effect. While these elements of the film definitely appeal to a student of Bergman's work, they do not necessarily translate into a must-see masterpiece.

This film suffered from a tedious and tumultuous production, with pressure from a studio that had little faith in Bergman at the time holding sway over the director's approach. Bergman was known for being an even-keeled, highly professional director to work with, but he has admitted that this was a reputation that he had to earn through many trials. In the production of this film he retained little popularity with the ensemble he had assembled, with a cantankerous, explosive attitude ruling over the young perfectionist. This would produce strenuous tensions between Bergman and the staff during filming. One famous incident involved Bergman's insistence that the crew continue filming after a cameraman had been injured from taking a fall. As Bergman's confidence in his storytelling would grow, so would his professionalism and capability as a director, something that this film reflects.

From a story standpoint, Crisis presents a narrative on the loss of innocence for a beautiful eighteen-year old girl by the name of Nelly (played by Inga Landgré), her relationship with her foster mother, Ingeborg (Dagny Lind), and the arrival of her estranged biological mother, Jenny (Marianne Löfgren). Jenny's lover, Jack (Stig Olin) also has a crucial role to play in the moral crisis that Nelly comes to face, as he seduces her to the whims and whiles of city-life and leads her further astray from the child-like innocence of her youth. The film carries commentary on motherhood, urban culture, and the naivety of the innocent. The success with which it pursues these themes is done with varying degrees of success. Towards the end, some of the plot developments feel sudden, and rash character actions appear out of place, making a compelling psychodrama teeter onto the edge of becoming a melodrama. This flirtation with becoming a hackneyed, overacted stage play transitions to the other elements of the film, particularly the acting and cinematography. The film is bolstered by strong performances by Stig Olin and Dagny Lind, with Olin playing a conniving, manipulative young man to great success (up until the film's end) and Lind portraying the saintly foster mother who does her best to protect Nelly. Otherwise, the performances in the film were middling in comparison to these two. Likewise, the cinematography can at times show a great sense of creativity that serves our understanding of the characters. The focus on one character during dialogue, as previously mentioned, and Ingeborg's dream sequence aboard the train are excellent examples of Bergman's future prowess. But much of the rest of the film has little flair going for it, and often feels as though it was shop fairly cheaply. This does not mean that the film was shot poorly, but that it lacked the steady guidance and beautiful compositions that would be found in Bergman's later work (often thanks to the support from Bergman's two key cinematographers during his career, Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist). Thus, the clashing of these components of brilliance and mediocrity meld together to form a flawed, albeit strongly compelling psychodrama.

Bergman would describe this film as a, "complete disaster," in his later years, dismissing his earliest film with severe criticisms that were mostly directed at his capabilities and personal failures at the time. With Bergman being the perfectionist that he was, one would be remiss to take heed of his criticisms. While definitely one of Bergman's minor works, it is essential if one aims to view the first steppingstone in this filmmaker's journey. It also evokes a gripping narrative that hints at what was to come from the young director.

Ingeborg (Dagny Lind) is a small-town piano teacher who raises her foster daughter, Nelly (Inga Landgré), into young adulthood. When Nelly is eighteen, she is shocked by the arrival of Jenny, her mother, whom she calls "Auntie." Jenny wants to take her to the big city and teach her to be a beautician in her salon. This is devastating news for Ingeborg, who is ill and does not expect to live long. Ulf, the stolid 30ish man in love with Nelly, begs her to stay; but she is not in love with him, considering him much too old. Instead, she is attracted to Jack, a new arrival in town. She doesn't guess that this strange young man with the striped suit and dashing mustache is her mother's lover as well.

Ingmar Bergman, making his directorial debut working with his own script adapted from a play by Leck Fischer, presents a lovely story that begins light and grows darker. Although he gets some beautifully composed shots from his cinematographer, Gösta Roosling, the movie is not put together in a particularly exciting or interesting way. His most impressive work is with his actors, who bring out all the shades of their multifaceted characters.

Those Shakespearean characterizations are what strike me the most. I don't know if they come from Fischer or Bergman. We see Jack (Stig Olin) as a dangerous lover, mischievous young man, laughable weakling, brooding intellectual and manipulative seducer. Jenny (Marianne Löfgren) appears as a selfish intruder, silly airhead, vain older woman and compassionate mother. 400 years after Shakespeare and over 60 years after this movie, we still don't often see characters like these.

The narrator at the beginning of this film mentions it's a comedy, and while the film which follows is hardly that, maybe he's referring to the laughable choices we sometimes make in life when young, because that's what this crisis seems to be about. It's either that or the crisis Bergman himself was facing as a struggling first-time director. Anyway, in the film, a young woman has been raised to the age of 18 in a small town by her adoptive mother, and is being courted by her mother's lodger, who while annoying, boring, and older, at least seems like a decent guy who cares for her. Enter her birth mother, who wants to take her to Stockholm to work in her beauty salon, as well as her birth mom's younger boyfriend, who is a creepy and disturbing lothario. The choice is thus between town/adoptive mom/nice guy, vs. city/birth mom/ladies man, and the film sets it pretty much up in those black and white terms.

One exception to that is how the film shows selfish vs. selfless love, and we find that most of it (or maybe all of it?) is at least partially the former, which was interesting. I also appreciated how the film confronts adoptive vs. birth parent rights, with the adoptive mom asserting herself, though that doesn't really develop much from there, since the young woman is old enough to make her own decisions.

Most of the scenes felt pretty generic and not all that compelling, but there were some exceptions. I loved the scene at the ball when the youth rearrange the furniture in the next room, then improvise some modern music and dance wildly, to the consternation of the older folks trying to listen to an opera singer. There is also a lovely scene when the adoptive mom is lying sleepless on a train, and remembering moments from the past. Bergman also gets a little zinger in on men when a woman in the beauty parlor quotes Catherine the Great as saying once you've had 10,000 men, you find that there isn't a whole lot of difference between any of them.

Unfortunately, despite solid performances from the cast, the film suffers mainly because of its script, which is melodramatic and simplistic. The craziest thing was the signature move we find that the playboy puts on women. He tells them he's killed his girlfriend, wants to turn himself into the police, and may shoot himself ... and apparently this is an approach that gets them into bed. (What?) The film also suffers from a lack of clarity and a wandering in tone, complete with an oddly jaunty soundtrack in places, and the young director is to blame for this. He himself commented in 1973 that "If someone had asked me to film the phone book, then I would have done it. The result might have been slightly better. I knew nothing, couldn't do anything, and felt like a crazy cat in a yarn harness," and the result was the studio sending in Victor Sjöström to help supervise him through the chaos. As Bergman idolized the man, that must have been very tough for him. Despite all of this, the film is not awful or anything, but it is decidedly average, and for Bergman completists only.

Bergman's adaptation of Leck Fischer's play behaves like a stage play that has been slightly adapted for the screen. It is essentially a chamber melodrama and it makes little use of the cinema's expanded scope. The film is watchable and the cast is competent. Almost everything about it is competent. It was Bergman's first go at directing a film. He was 27/28 years old at the time.

Bergman is clearly influenced by Ibsen - I say "is", because the old master (nearly 85 years old now) is still at it on the stage - I have the privilege to hold tickets to see his adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts in London May 2003 - can't wait. Kris is clearly influenced by Ibsen, but while the piece has borrowed Ibsen's mastery of structure and development, Kris lacks depth. If Ibsen is grand opera, Kris is operetta. Bergman had not yet acquired the skill to turn a minor play into a major film.

There is the odd hint of greatness to come, in particular the railway scene between Jack and Ingeborg. There is also the odd interesting camera angle. But some of the cutting is amateurish and the music is ghastly.

If the weatherman tells you that there is going to be a tremendous storm, you do not need to be a genius to recognise that the wispy breeze is a prelude to that storm. In the absence of that weather forecast, you could be forgiven for not recognising the breeze as an early hint at the big one. So it is with this film. Because we know it is Bergman, we see hints of greatness to come. Otherwise this would seem like an (admittedly above average) ordinary 1940's film.

Bergman aficionados will enjoy it, but it should be quite a way down the list for people who want to start discovering the greatness of Bergman's work.

Ingmar Bergman started off his productive career as film director with 'Kris', a fine little gem. As the comments on this film are rather mixed, let me explain how I came to like it.

Having seen already a few Bergman films, I decided to do a retrospective of his work as a film director. I gathered as many of his films as possible, and started now watching them in chronological order. This allows the viewer to observe the evolution in a director's style.

While being familiar with films such as 'The Magician' and 'Jungfrükällan', I picked out 'Kris' for take-off. The first film of a director is usually not the best - keeping this in mind is important when watching it. If you have seen some of the greatest movies of a director, it's unlikely that you will be equally impressed by his debut.

I enjoyed 'Kris' thoroughly because I tend to ignore the occasional mistakes or failures and seek for those indications that show us a (lurking) genius. Watching 'Kris' this way makes it simply joyful, as one can see clearly an upcoming talent. The theatrical dramatization gives us clear hints of Bergman's favorite subjects which he will continue to explore in many of his later movies, such as the doomed destiny of human desire, surrounded by existential pain.

'Kris' is categorized as a drama here on IMDb - the first half is full of cheerful comedy though. Bergman informs his audience about this at the start of the movie, in order to prepare them for what is to follow. That is also the way I recommend you to watch this movie, or as Bergman describes: "This is an everyday play, perhaps even a comedy."

Enjoy,