Musique dans les ténèbres

For some reason, when I heard the term "early Bergman," I envisioned 'Music in Darkness (1948)' to be a rather primitive piece of film-making. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised, instead finding the film to be beautifully photographed by cinematographer Göran Strindberg, with all the refreshing themes and visuals we've come to expect from Sweden's master director. Bergman's fourth as director, the film is a fairly straightforward melodrama, dealing with a young man's attempts to accept a newly-acquired disability. However, the film's techniques never strike one as being sentimental or manipulative in that classic Hollywood sense; the main character is not a selfless humble martyr, nor is he a selfish tyrant who regains his humanity through the kindness of others. Indeed, Bergman paints a rather unflattering portrait of society, as his blind protagonist is regularly exploited for money, or otherwise disregarded as a useless cripple. Even the film's ending, while seemingly ideal on the surface, carries with it a sense of ambiguity, the uncertainty of a future that could easily turn awry.

When Bengt Vyldeke (Birger Malmsten) is struck blind in a military training exercise, he is plunged into a debilitating darkness that robs him of everything he's come to expect from life. As he fights death in the moments following the accident, he imagines himself clawing across darkened mudflats, as grimy, disembodied arms grope blindly at his limbs. These clutching appendages represent Bengt's devastating fall from upper-class society, as he is unceremoniously dragged into the vessel of a man who is consistently ignored, pitied and exploited for his disability. Almost immediately afterwards, Bengt is abandoned by his friends (including his girlfriend Blanche), and finds sole consolation in the home of Mrs. Schröder (Naima Wifstrand), who agrees to teach him music. It is here that Bengt comes to meet Ingrid (Mai Zetterling), a pretty young servant from "peasant stock," who forms a touching friendship with her blind master, one built on trust and understanding rather than pity. Whereas, previously, class differences would have kept the pair far apart, Bengt's disability serves as a bridge of sorts.

Throughout the film, class difference does occasionally rear its ugly head to jeopardise Bengt and Ingrid's romance – at one point, he refers to her as a "little wench," not realising that she is listening to his conversation. It is only when Bengt comes to accept that his place in the world has fallen that he can appreciate and accept Ingrid as a genuine love interest, however alienating such a realisation must necessarily be. Curiously, the film's blind protagonist ultimately regains his dignity through being punched in the nose. Bengt is competing with the handsome and able-sighted Ebbe (Bengt Eklund) for Ingrid's love, but must suffer the humiliation of being totally disregarded as a potential rival. When he decides to stand up for his girl, he unexpectedly suffers a fist to the face, and this rather cowardly act from an unhandicapped man serves to liberate Bengt from his cocoon of helplessness and inconsequentiality. The marriage, when it comes, seems more an act of defiance than anything else, and the audience is left wondering whether this ill-advised gamble will ever pay off.

A film directed by Ingmar Bergman at the beginning of his career, based on a screenplay written by someone else, Dagmar Edqvist who adapted it from his own play.

It tells the story of a young man who becomes blind in a military accident and has to rebuild his life with that big limitation. At first a huge, insurmountable obstacle, but which, little by little, becomes not only tolerable, but even a means for rediscovering the world, music and love, with a new sensitivity and a positive attitude towards life.

It may not be one of the Swedish master's best films, but it's certainly worth seeing.

Bengt's lost his sight and is blind, his future now closed and confined, a musical career, may also disappear, a world for which he wasn't designed (just how do you come to terms with losing your sight and all the unplanned futures it brings).

Ingrid is a servant, a maid, she's become Bengt's supporter and aid, now he's opened her eyes, to the world and its skies, no longer surrounded by shade (the foundation for all success - opportunity, empowerment and education).

It's not a complex tale of two people finding themselves, but it's a beautifully performed story of two people falling in love under circumstances neither would have wished for, as their social status adjusts and their outlooks align.

It is always worth paying special attention to the music of Ingmar Bergman's films, because it always carries great significance. This is one of his almost numerous films dealing directly with music, as it tells the story of a brilliant young pianist who in an accident loses his sight but goes on playing, although he can't get any stable position, and as an alternative he educates himself to a piano tuner. The scenes from the school for the blind are the most poignant and interesting in the film, especially the class of blind children reading together, while the scene then changes into the concert the blind pianist is giving for the blind. His films with music for a major theme are perhaps his most personal and interesting and might be the best ones, and here for the first time he pierces the mental darkness of the black side of music and creation. Mai Zetterling is the enduring light in this darkness, and when you lose her in the beginning you long for her to reappear, which of course you are certain she will, and she does indeed. Birger Malmsten as the blind pianist makes a very delicate performance of both great pain and superior integrity, and all the other actors are outstanding as well, especially Douglas Håge as the rowdy restaurant boss. As a film of his youth, it is still of the experimental stage of Bergman's long career, but as such it is perhaps the most interesting of his early experimenting films.

'Music in Darkness' is early Bergman, his fourth as a director. Early Bergman is actually same expression like Early Kurosawa or Early Hitchcock - usually well made (far from being amateurish), but shallow in plot and void of depth in characters and dialogue. 'Music in Darkness' is exactly like that. Beautiful cinematography, but no other Bergman traits. If one wouldn't know it's a Bergman movie then they would think it's just OK melodrama about blind musician and his struggles with life and love. Pretty predictable and by the numbers drama that actually follows more classical Hollywood formulas than carries Bergman's voice (I guess that's the reason this is called Early Bergman). The subject of depression and human's inner fights are only touched on the surface. By far from being a bad movie, but nothing too memorable also. Competently directed little film.