L'éternel mirage

All the Bergman complexes are already here: the dysfunctional family, the tyrannical father, the struggling sex disturbances, the human decadence, the claustrophobia, the inferiority complex, it's all here bundled up in a rotten ship trying to salvage a wreck, with a few able seamen but a captain that constantly ruins everything, it's all sordid and dreadful, even the dialog is constantly strained, the emotional outbursts keep on rolling, but the whole thing is wonderfully filmed with Bergman's famous and unique sense of imagery. A failure of a captain has a hunchback for a son, whom he keeps as a slave more or less, he wants to become a seaman, but the father keeps him hard at work with dirty things, and so there is a constant conflict brewing up. The captain wants to go away and leave everything, wife and son and crew and ship, to escape with a variety girl, but she falls in love with the son, while the captain is going blind. What a mess! It's the son that ultimately goes away, but comes back after seven years to find the wrecks of his previous life and the girl, whom he imagines has been waiting for him for seven years, as he has been dreaming of her for seven years, but that romantic construction is not quite convincing. The assets of the film are the splendid photography and imagery, and a wonderful score by Erland von Koch.

The baggage the youthful Ingmar Bergman was carrying about his parent's generation finds vivid expression in this, his third feature, from his early "neo-realist" phase, which combines an extremely melodramatic plot about a hunch-backed young man (Birger Malmsten) struggling with the baleful influence of his macho, bullying father (Holger Löwenadler), set against an arresting backdrop of documentary-style footage of life among working folk. The noisy musical score by Erland von Koch marks it out as a very early Bergman.

Alexander's a terrible parent, his attitude completely aberrant, treats Alice a slave, gallivants misbehaves, believes Sally can make him content (he's never come to terms with his son's affliction).

Alice's dream has been shattered, the cottage and pension in tatters, her husbands' new hopes, leave her on the ropes, their love, devotion, all but scattered (treated like a second class person and casually discarded).

Sally reached for the hand proffered, escaping surrounds she'd been coffered, didn't reckon on Johannes, or her saviour's menace, has to live with the choice going forward (who wouldn't latch onto something that can pull them from the depths).

Johannes back from seven years, at sea to wash away all the tears, finds Sally alone, isolated and prone, sets his sail to remember past fears (afflicted from birth, both physically and psychologically).

Exploring past events between a son and his toxic father, the events leading up to the son's departure and the love he left behind under challenging circumstances. Sincere and great performances in a truly engaging tale.

I was shocked when Bergman called his first film, Crisis, "lousy through and through". But, this time I might agree. Melodramatic might be an appropriate adjective for this film. The directing and the screenplay work in opposite directions. If the directing is perhaps accentuating Bergman's fear concerning his relationship with his father, it is forgetting the romance into making it a lame melodrama.

Again, A Ship to India, Bergman's third film has some interesting ideas and proves his technical abilities. However, this time, due to the essence of Martin Söderhjelm, his formalist ideas (camera angles, lighting, dissolve) works against him.

But it's not one of his best. The characterizations of the film's protagonists are inconsistent from scene to scene and some of them leave a viewer with many unanswered questions (like the mother's motivations.) Beyond that, the cinematography is pretty dowdy, particularly the exterior footage.

Still, it has elements that Bergman fans will recognize from his more famous films, and it contains sequences of despair and anguish that can haunt a viewer days later. Birger Malmsten, who plays the lead character Johannes and who will be seen in several later Bergman films, is immensely likable and compelling as the hunchback son who finally stands up to his despotic father. While many of the early Bergman films are uninteresting at almost every level ("Port of Call," for instance) this one is well worth a look for the hard core Bergmaniac, if you can find it.