Crisis marks Bergman's first film in the director's seat and serves as a promising, if often stumbling, showcase of the director's future prowess as a filmmaker. Guided under the steady mentorship of Victor Sjöström, a legendary Swedish director from the silent era, Bergman quietly made his appearance on the world stage with this melodramatic coming-of-age story on the loss of innocence. A layout of many of Bergman's future motifs is established here, with the conflict between family generations, the psychological tension that lies between men and women, and themes on existential despair being peppered throughout the film's run time. Some of his visual flair also begins to take root here, most famously of which being his refusal to capitulate to the classic shot-reverse-shot technique for scenes of dialogue. Bergman, with his fascination with the human face, would prefer to simply focus in on the face of a single actor throughout the length of a conversation, often to great dramatic effect. While these elements of the film definitely appeal to a student of Bergman's work, they do not necessarily translate into a must-see masterpiece.
This film suffered from a tedious and tumultuous production, with pressure from a studio that had little faith in Bergman at the time holding sway over the director's approach. Bergman was known for being an even-keeled, highly professional director to work with, but he has admitted that this was a reputation that he had to earn through many trials. In the production of this film he retained little popularity with the ensemble he had assembled, with a cantankerous, explosive attitude ruling over the young perfectionist. This would produce strenuous tensions between Bergman and the staff during filming. One famous incident involved Bergman's insistence that the crew continue filming after a cameraman had been injured from taking a fall. As Bergman's confidence in his storytelling would grow, so would his professionalism and capability as a director, something that this film reflects.
From a story standpoint, Crisis presents a narrative on the loss of innocence for a beautiful eighteen-year old girl by the name of Nelly (played by Inga Landgré), her relationship with her foster mother, Ingeborg (Dagny Lind), and the arrival of her estranged biological mother, Jenny (Marianne Löfgren). Jenny's lover, Jack (Stig Olin) also has a crucial role to play in the moral crisis that Nelly comes to face, as he seduces her to the whims and whiles of city-life and leads her further astray from the child-like innocence of her youth. The film carries commentary on motherhood, urban culture, and the naivety of the innocent. The success with which it pursues these themes is done with varying degrees of success. Towards the end, some of the plot developments feel sudden, and rash character actions appear out of place, making a compelling psychodrama teeter onto the edge of becoming a melodrama. This flirtation with becoming a hackneyed, overacted stage play transitions to the other elements of the film, particularly the acting and cinematography. The film is bolstered by strong performances by Stig Olin and Dagny Lind, with Olin playing a conniving, manipulative young man to great success (up until the film's end) and Lind portraying the saintly foster mother who does her best to protect Nelly. Otherwise, the performances in the film were middling in comparison to these two. Likewise, the cinematography can at times show a great sense of creativity that serves our understanding of the characters. The focus on one character during dialogue, as previously mentioned, and Ingeborg's dream sequence aboard the train are excellent examples of Bergman's future prowess. But much of the rest of the film has little flair going for it, and often feels as though it was shop fairly cheaply. This does not mean that the film was shot poorly, but that it lacked the steady guidance and beautiful compositions that would be found in Bergman's later work (often thanks to the support from Bergman's two key cinematographers during his career, Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist). Thus, the clashing of these components of brilliance and mediocrity meld together to form a flawed, albeit strongly compelling psychodrama.
Bergman would describe this film as a, "complete disaster," in his later years, dismissing his earliest film with severe criticisms that were mostly directed at his capabilities and personal failures at the time. With Bergman being the perfectionist that he was, one would be remiss to take heed of his criticisms. While definitely one of Bergman's minor works, it is essential if one aims to view the first steppingstone in this filmmaker's journey. It also evokes a gripping narrative that hints at what was to come from the young director.
