Piove sul nostro amore

Bergman is still making his way here, with a story that revolves around the struggle to be accepted by society if one has a stain on one's past. A man meets a woman who's missed her train, and they have a fling which leads to deeper feelings. The trouble is, he's fresh out of prison, she's pregnant from some other one-night stand, and they're both broke. The fact that the man has trouble accepting the woman's pregnancy initially was an interesting touch, since he too is judged for mistakes he's made, and it's also refreshing to see the open treatment of premarital sex.

The couple seem to get a break from a guy who lets them stay in his cottage and sets him up with a job, but between those who can't accept that an ex-con can go straight or the couple living together "in sin," and those who prey on their simplicity, they have a tough go of it. The film is a condemnation of narrow-mindedness which I liked, but it gets a little heavy-handed in a courtroom scene towards the end, and in the film's final moments, as sweet as the gesture was. The leading couple (Barbro Kollberg and Birger Malmsten) make a good-looking pair and I appreciated what the film was going for, but guard your expectations.

The title sounds like another of Bergman's early dockland melodramas, but this - his second film - is more good-natured whimsy in an attractively photographed rural setting.

Some of the scenes and compositions feel like flash-forwards to Bergman's fifties work; two that specifically anticipate 'Wild Strawberries' are the courtroom setting it concludes with and the fairy godfather played by veteran actor Gösta Cederlund (billed as the "Man with Umbrella") who gatecrashes it to serve as the young lovers' defence counsel. Having emerged in the opening shot from behind an umbrella like the stranger in the dream sequence at the start of 'Wild Strawberries', Cederlund thereafter saunters in and out of the action - sometimes in a haze of cigar smoke like Leon Ames as Mr.Candle in 'Yolanda and the Thief' - occasionally breeching the fourth wall to comment urbanely on the action.

Maggi needs to take the next train, she's confused, alone and feels the strain, escaping her past, with baggage amassed, no hope and with nothing to gain (sometimes things don't turn out the way you had hoped).

David overnights at the station, going nowhere and not on vacation, bleak future ahead, no hope only dread, an outcast and left to damnation (just as today, a blemished past can lead you to the fringes).

Together they make a fresh start, so much better as two than apart, it's a struggle, a battle, being treated like cattle, to haul the metaphorical cart (a lot easier together though, to carry the baggage of the past).

The biases and prejudice against those who don't conform to societies ideals, as relevant today as ever it was, and quite possibly more abundant and widespread in a more diverse ecology. Beautiful and sincere performances throughout, leaves you determined to never give up or give in.

This feature, like Bergman's first' is a relatively simple melodrama. Both follow rather simple narratives about characters going through simple struggles. And yet, where his first one left me unmoved, this second film is at the very least Charming with also thought provoking commentary on Swedish society at best.

Like Birger Malmsten's character David says in the first minutes of the film, "Damn Society", or something along those lines at least. Time and time again our two lovers are confronted with unfortune from society and everytime they pull through and come out stronger, ending in a finally in court that felt satisfying to say the least.

While nothing too special in terms of Cinematography or anything like that I think this is a more than fine film and a good start for Bergman. It's funny to see these light hearted early films of him that feel almost out of place when compared to his dramatic works we now know would later follow. I guess the Swedish audiences at that time were more interested in light hearted films about love than deep ones about human nature and death and such.

3/5 Stars.

'It rains on our love" (1946) is an early film by Ingmar Bergman. Bergman was a director who had to learn his trade so the film is worth watching , but it isn't great.

The film is about two vagabonds, a man (David played by Birger Malmsten, a regular actor in Bergman films up till 1950) and a women (Maggi played by Barbro Kollberg), that are treated roughly by society. Of course (representatives of) society do see that differently. In their view the vagabonds fail to adapt to society's norms.

Films about vagabonds always remind me of "the little tramp", the ultimate vagabond, most certainly if a stray dog is involved, as is the case in "It rains on our love". See also "A dog's life" (1918, Charlie Chaplin). Chaplin however was much more competent in finding the right mix between comedy and sentimentality than the young Bergman, and also than the mature Bergman I guess, because Bergman quit making films in this genre after a while.

The film ends with a courtroom scene, and this is one of the most memorable scenes of the film. In the beginning the two vagabonds are on trial, but when their lawyer starts his defence the roles are quickly reversed and it almost seems that society is on trial.

This lawyer (Gosta Cederlund) is a remarkable appearance in "It rains on our love". He starts as a sort of narrator / guradian angel and all of a sudden becomes a character. Most unusual!