La Femme sans visage

Pun somewhat intended. With black and white photography you could do a lot with shadows and other things of that nature. There were shades of things and you had to experiment with the lighting ... if you add a character drama to that mix, you can work with that too and really bring forth certain issues or traits you want to .... well highlight.

In this case it is about desire, dreams and love (self and otherwise). Unlike more recent especially teenage orientated stories, where a girl had to choose between two males, this has two women in ... "contest" over one man. But just boiling it down to that would not be fair. Especially considering on the note this ends on. If you are into character development and things between the lines, you will probably really like this ... an oddity I reckon of sorts. But a very good one.

The main thing here is the excellent script by Ingmar Bergman, which concentrates entirely on the woman played by Gun Wållgren, a very special and brilliant Swedish actress, who excelled in dubious parts like this - one of her films is called "The Girl and the Devil" in which she plays a double role, an innocent girl and an heinous witch. Here she excels in rendering a very complex female character real, and she is convincing in every moment of it, superior, experienced, handling her men as puppets, playing with them perhaps a bit cruelly sometimes, but always in perfect control; while Alf Kjellin as the leading man is a very poor character, weak and coward and really totally without character as probably a very spoilt child. The supporting characters are excellent as well, and the direction honours the script. Ingmar Bergman was an outstanding script writer, especially in his early films, like in Alf Sjöberg's "Torment" ("Hets") 1944, one of the greatest of Swedish classics. This film shows many similarities and associations to the great masterpiece but rather as a shadow, while the characterizations are the more outstanding.

A neurotic paintress. A young man- husband, father, part of a gray family life. A delicate wife for who his man is the essence of life. A love story, strange game, subtle end and a script by Ingmar Bergman.

A film about desire, dreams and refuges. About the other as mirror and purpose of own existence. And the emotional cages.

A film as a diamond. Cold, fascinating, with shadows and lights, temptations and strange reflections. A sad story but , in same time, description of a moral victory. Duty versus desire and fear against protective love. Pieces of fiction and the warm of real world.

For me, this film was a special experience. Not a lesson or a good artistic result but a form of filling search. And that may be enough!

From the early period when the later renowned Ingmar Bergman would be directing his own screenplays, this melodrama from the veteran Gustav Molander (most famous for discovering the other Bergman, Ingrid) suffers from the unpleasant writing of the main female character (a poisonous "femme fatale" reminiscent of some of the worst of Hollywood film noir) and an unnecessarily complicated story layout tricked out with flashbacks and narration.

It is competently enough made but leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.

"Woman Without a Face" is a film Bergman wrote to be directed by Gustaf Molander, the director of the Swedish"Intermezzo," which made Ingrid Bergman an international star. Here you have one of Sweden's greatest actress who made few films but her last role in cinema was Helena Ekdahl in "Fanny and Alexander.". She and Alf Kjellin burn up the screen with their sordid twisted passion as Bergman's script explores the dark side of love and sex. It was made 2 years before "Prison," the film in which Bergman had free artistic control as director for the first time. The two films are almost siblings and share some common themes and situations, except that here everything works to perfection. The character played by Wållgren is solidly written and is certainly one of the most interesting characters he created in his early films. Her performance makes you understand the meaning of the word "riveting," as she obviously takes delight in such a complex character, a "femme fatale," but one who herself is trapped in her own perversion. Kjellin is perfect as the seemilingly well brought up family man who is drawn into Wållgren's carefully spun spiderweb of sado-masochism. This film is an absolutely must-see for anyone interested in Bergman's early years and it is a tragedy that it has not been included in the British or American "complete" box sets of Bergman's work. It's included in the Swedish SFI Bergman box but with subtitles only in Swedish! All Bergman fans need to see this. Perhaps you can watch it holding up a smartphone to translate the dialogue for you.