Rêve de femmes

This is a pretty nice film from Bergman's early work. It focuses on two women. One, a photographer, is a strong woman in her business, but is hanging on to a time when she was in love. She lost that love and sort of intimidates him into meeting her in a few days. She is getting older and more lonely and doesn't see life as worth much (really---in a Bergman film?). The other, played by Harriett Andersson is a young photographic model, has a fiery temper and she has driven off her lover. As she tries to get her bearings, she window shops, and is approached by a rich old man (a widower), who buys her an expensive dress, jewels, and shoes. They go to an amusement part where she has a great time while his strength begins to fizzle. They go back to his huge house and frolic like teenagers. They both have too much to drink and she is trying to seduce him when his daughter shows up and embarrasses both of them. She is stunned at how foolish she has been. The first woman meets her former lover, now a family man, and tries to rekindle the attraction. But then a series of events take place (I won't spoil the scene). The acting is excellent and there is actually a positive message that comes out of this.

Dreams begins with a photography shoot. It is the land of Dreams. We meet Doris, the model. Soon we are drawn into her world. She is engaged. Trouble is, her beau is rather straight. She has big aspirations. She wants more out of life. But she is not the only one with dreams. The photographer, Susanne, is missing her ex lover. Trouble is, he broke the relationship off because he is married. She's not about to let that stop her.

To say more would be to ruin the plot, but we soon meet other characters who also have Dreams. It seems we all do, but more often than not, we are not allowed to achieve them. And perhaps that's not always a bad thing. We seem to spend most of our lives with desires, untapped and unreachable. Bergman knows this all too well, and tortures his characters with their yearnings, desires out of step with the mechanics of day to day living. It provides excellent drama. As always Bergman keeps the struggle between man and woman as tension filled lovers foremost in the frame. There is desire but it is fraught with problems.

It's not Bergman's best film. The characters can sometimes seem selfish, but this is the point. How do we exist in the world if we cannot have what we want? It's a heartbreaking realization.

Some say Bergman is the greatest Director the world has ever seen. I'm not sure about that. Tarkovsky was a visual genius, but Bergman is certainly more intimate, his stories personal and instantly identifiable. He achieves success again with Dreams.

Susanne can't stop thinking of Henrik, overwhelming, it makes her feel sick, like a moth to a flame, a thoroughbred who's lame, no use to man nor beast while she's like this.

Doris found a sponsor for the day, if she wants something he's quite happy to pay, but the cost could be quite high, if she stayed with this old guy, who wants someone to take the loneliness away.

An eventful day in the lives of two quite different women, both belittled and humiliated for different reasons, looking for something that can't be conjured and is often fleeting. Eva Dahlbeck is always worth devouring wherever she performs and whatever she is in, and Harriet Andersson seldom puts a foot wrong whenever she's around either.

Ingmar Bergman's early film Dreams (1955), beautiful but sadly underrated and little known, presents the stories about two dissimilar women and their loves, and touches on all the timeless and tough realities of torment, longing, loneliness, and aging in a simple and sublime way. Everyone who ever was madly and desperately in love and for some reasons could not be with the object of their longing should appreciate this film. Speaking of making Dreams, Ingmar Bergman comments, "By this time Harriet (Andersson) and I had terminated our relationship, and we were both feeling quite sad. Our sadness weighs down the film". Bergman regulars Harriet Andersson and Eva Dahlbeck (both will play in the same year's Smiles of a Summer Night, a very successful and sparkling Bergman's comedy) portray two women, the owner of a model agency, Doris (Dahlbeck) and her top model, Susanne (Andersson). A major figure in Ingmar Bergman's films of the 1950s, Eva Dahlbeck was stunning - an elegant, poised, sophisticated classical blonde beauty with high intelligence and the talents in acting and writing.

Harriet Andersson was discovered at the age of 20 by Ingmar Bergman who made especially for her screen debut the film "Summer with Monica". Extraordinary and versatile as an actress, her roles ranged from the naive young girls with erotic charisma to the young woman losing her grip with reality in Through a glass darkly (1962) to the fearless breakthrough performance as a dying woman in Cries and Whispers. In Dreams, she is absolutely charming. Camera loved her - sexy, sweet, and innocent, she lit the screen in her every scene.

I am a great admirer of Ingmar Bergman's work, there is always many things that are interesting. Not all his work are masterpieces, but so far I have not seen a film of his that I'd class as bad. Dreams is a very good movie, one of his most underrated without being up there with his finest. Some of the contrasting themes were perhaps more confidently explored in later films and the film could have been longer, but this is all a matter of preference. It is superbly directed and beautifully made, an oft-characteristic with Bergman's films. The music is hauntingly understated, while the dialogue is written in a meaningful and thought-provoking way and the story is austere, romantic, painful and ironic and observed in a masterful way. The characters are seen as selfish but compellingly real, while the acting has nothing that would strike anybody as questionable. Harriet Anderssen ties with Liv Ullman as the best of the female performers in Bergman's films, and her performance is utterly magnetic in every way possible, quite charming and very photogenic. Eva Dahlbeck- looking very classy and stunningly elegant- and Gunnar Bjornstrand provide great support, and Bergman himself even makes a cameo. All in all, an underrated film that does deserve to be seen more. 8/10 Bethany Cox