Victor Sjöström - ett porträtt av Gösta Werner

Victor Sjostorm dominated Swedish cinema, as both director and actor, for the first half of the twentieth century, until the arrival of Ingmar Bergman. This Swedish Film Institute documentary is full of generous, tantalising, beautifully refurbished clips of his silent masterpieces, including 'The Outlaw and his Wife', 'The Phantom Carriage' and 'The Monastary at Sendomir'. Another bonus is a rare interview with Bergman, who discusses Sjostrom at length as influence, collaborator and father figure (Sjostrom today is most famous for his lead role in Bergman's 'Wild Strawberries', a rare excursion for him into thespian restraint by the evidence of this documentary). The downside is the lack of contextualisation about Sjostrom's place in Swedish cinema as a whole, his development as an artist, or his awareness of the other great silent directors.

I love films about film makers and stars and so I have seen a lot of them. However, I was majorly disappointed in this film about Victor Sjöström for many reasons. First, it told almost nothing about him as a person and his life. I really wanted some nice insights into who he was...and got almost none. Second, instead of an intensive discussion of all of his films and lots of interviews, the only interviewee was Ingmar Bergman and instead of talking about the films, they just showed LONG clips from a few of his films--very long ones at that. As a result of this and very grainy clips, it all just came off as cheap and incomplete. And, I might add, was among the least well-made or interesting of the retrospectives I've ever seen. Not terrible...but surely someone could have done a better job on his life than this. Disappointing.