Quando as Mulheres Esperam

Four sisters-in-law sit around a table and tell each other stories of how they fell in love.

It's Ingmar Bergman's first comedy and that's probably why this particular film appealed to him, with its anthology structure. Bergman assembled his usual flawless cast and gave them roles they sink themselves into, with a gradually ascending level of hilarity in the four. Yet like all good comedies, like all good stories, it has a serious, if not particularly solemn statement to to make: love isn't one thing to all people. It's different for every human being.

Gunnar Fischer's black-and-white cinematography is lush and romantic. That's something modern audiences don't understand: black and white photography is more romantic than color, because it hides more; by reducing vivid life to mochmatic mages, it engages the viewer, forcing him or her to imagine, to invest effort into the viewing, and thus engage in the creative process. Bergman knew this, and with the help of his fine cameramen, brought this to life.

1952. Bergman was past his studio phase, but he hadn't quite hit the point in his career where he was "Bergman", art house darling. He was writing almost everything he directed at this point, but no one outside of Sweden knew he existed, and even in Sweden he wasn't that famous or even financially successful. It was in this period that he made Waiting Women, an interesting and mostly successful little movie about four women who are, well, waiting.

It's a summer day in Sweden and the wives of four brothers are at a summer cottage corralling their children to bed and finding a way to spend the final few hours before the brothers return from weeks away. They decide that in order to foster a certain type of sisterhood, they should share their experiences in love with each other. The first is Annette, the oldest of them, who insists that there's nothing to share about her relationship with her husband, Paul. The second is Rakel, wife to Eugen, who talks about how she had an affair with another man, admitted it to Eugen immediately afterwards and, in the throws of Eugen's depression that immediately hit, she changed her view of their relationship to one more matronly than it had been previously.

The third is Marta, the youngest of the four who tell the stories. Hers is the longest and most interesting structurally and narratively (even though I'm not sure it entirely works). We see her with an American serviceman in postwar Paris, but they have a fight and she ends up spending the night with her neighbor, a Swedish painter (and the third brother). They conceive a child, but she doesn't tell him before he goes back to Sweden for his father's funeral. She has her baby alone, and the extended scene (which is also a framing device around the time in Paris) focuses on her isolation and makes it palpable. However, I feel like there is simply too much confusion and too many questions left unaddressed, much less answered, in this portion to make it completely successful, even though it is, at a minimum, interesting.

The fourth is the lightest and easiest of the stories. Karin is married to Frederik, and they return from an event at the family company. Frederik is very smug about his position in life, considering himself the most successful of the four brothers. The pair get trapped in the elevator to their apartment and things devolve. First, visually through Frederik's top hot getting squashed, then through Karin's verbal trickery that gets Frederik to admit to a string of affairs. Karin doesn't seem to mind that much, though. The implication is that they've been married too long for it to matter, as long as they hold their home together.

Through all of these stories, there is a fifth woman, Maj, much younger and engaged to the fifth brother, Henrik. She scoffs at everyone's story, essentially telling them that they don't know love and that they love incorrectly. She's the picture of youth that way. Adding her in, and we see that Bergman has portrayed love in five different stages of maturity. From the earliest (Maj) that is concerned most with passion to the oldest (Annette) that feels like there's nothing to tell at all. There is a great shot early when we see all five women naturally sitting but perfectly framed with a great depth of field that suggests this even before anyone begins telling their stories.

It's an interesting and, at times, very fun little movie. I'm not sure it's entirely successful, but it works well enough.

See it. Lyrical, beautifully shot, quietly hilarious in spots, this film is seldom screened. Perhaps more than his better-known works, this film showcases Bergman's love of women. Bjork, Dahlbeck and especially Nilsson are adoringly photographed; this is passionate young Bergman. A delight.

Four women await their husbands/lovers and tell stories of their early encounters with these men. I won't go through the plot but suffice it to say that there is selfishness, self- loathing, sacrifice, and even some empty headed joy. One story tells of a spiteful woman and her boring husband. A childhood lover comes while he is gone and has tryst with her. She tells her husband and this leads to some soul searching. The second is an encounter with an artist that leads to a child being born and his self-centered departure. The third is a couple, married for several years, trapped on an elevator, giving what they say is an honest view of one another. The fourth has arranged to run off with her boyfriend, leaving the family behind. This may sound a bit vapid, but it is done with a master's touch, with the artistry that is Bergman. Every bit of cinema is framed and filled with emotion.

I am a great admirer of Ingmar Bergman, Sweden's greatest director, and his films. Waiting Women(or Secrets of Women) is not one of his very finest, but it is one of his most underrated. Perhaps it is a touch overlong and episodic, but compared to everything else on display they are entirely forgivable. Bergman's direction is polished and never detached, while the film looks beautiful and is photographed every bit as strikingly. The music is hauntingly understated, the right approach for the story Waiting Women is conveying, while the writing is splendid(as is the comic finale) especially in the elevator sequence. The three stories that form the film are done in a heart-warming yet sincere way, the first is a tad clichéd and probably the weakest of the three but still does its job well, while the second story was the one with the most heart and the third was the one with the most pleasantly funny moments. What really matters is that all three had subjects that anybody can identify with and dealt with them realistically. The characters weren't the most likable on the planet, nor were they intended to be. That said, I wasn't annoyed or frustrated by them. All six leads give deeply felt and believable performances, Eva Dahlbeck and Gunner Bjornstrand are particularly note-worthy. Overall, while not one of Bergman's best it is one of his more underrated films and is very well done. 9/10 Bethany Cox