Crisis (1946)
(Kris)
Country: SV
Technical: bw 93m
Director: An unsettling film, which takes adults back to their most basic childhood fears while at the same time investigating the destructive power of grief over those who survive. What is interesting is how the mother begins by being the protectress, but then cedes this role to the boy in the second half. The suburban location is familiar from countless other stories of the uncanny or the possessed, and some of the scenes do wear their antecedents rather weakly, but for most of its running time this is a sustained rattling of the nerves, with more hair-prickle moments than a handful of your run-of-the-mill creepers. Formally it is a masterstroke, with the black and white artwork of the titular book perfectly echoed in the chiaroscuro of the house and its furnishings, and Davis does a spectacular job of shuttling between the Duvall and Nicholson roles in The Shining.
Cast: Inga Landgré, Stig Olin, Marianne Löfgren, Dagny Lind
Synopsis:
A selfish woman who left her child with a surrogate mother returns to the small town when she is eighteen to reclaim her and give her a job at her beauty salon in the city. The daughter's departure affects both those she leaves behind and the girl's biological mother herself, whose lover, a charming but unstable young dreamer, is attracted to her.
Review:
Bergman's first feature as director is by its own definition a comedy of manners, but features dramatic and overwrought elements that would become hallmarks, not least in its score. The mother is terminally ill, the dandy (Olin excellent) a neurasthenic lothario, and safe Mr Right back home a stolid bore: it is clear that the director's sympathies in part lie with the flighty daughter and mother, the latter grappling with age and the loss of her looks, rather than with the righteous small town characters. The rakish narration would seem to support this, and leaves us with a somewhat ambivalent conclusion. Technically it is a confident piece of work, with occasional stylistic debts to Hitchcock (overlapping images on the train journey, the climactic scene in and outside the beauty salon, with its macabre shop window dummies).
(Kris)
Country: SV
Technical: bw 93m
Director: An unsettling film, which takes adults back to their most basic childhood fears while at the same time investigating the destructive power of grief over those who survive. What is interesting is how the mother begins by being the protectress, but then cedes this role to the boy in the second half. The suburban location is familiar from countless other stories of the uncanny or the possessed, and some of the scenes do wear their antecedents rather weakly, but for most of its running time this is a sustained rattling of the nerves, with more hair-prickle moments than a handful of your run-of-the-mill creepers. Formally it is a masterstroke, with the black and white artwork of the titular book perfectly echoed in the chiaroscuro of the house and its furnishings, and Davis does a spectacular job of shuttling between the Duvall and Nicholson roles in The Shining.
Cast: Inga Landgré, Stig Olin, Marianne Löfgren, Dagny Lind
Synopsis:
A selfish woman who left her child with a surrogate mother returns to the small town when she is eighteen to reclaim her and give her a job at her beauty salon in the city. The daughter's departure affects both those she leaves behind and the girl's biological mother herself, whose lover, a charming but unstable young dreamer, is attracted to her.
Review:
Bergman's first feature as director is by its own definition a comedy of manners, but features dramatic and overwrought elements that would become hallmarks, not least in its score. The mother is terminally ill, the dandy (Olin excellent) a neurasthenic lothario, and safe Mr Right back home a stolid bore: it is clear that the director's sympathies in part lie with the flighty daughter and mother, the latter grappling with age and the loss of her looks, rather than with the righteous small town characters. The rakish narration would seem to support this, and leaves us with a somewhat ambivalent conclusion. Technically it is a confident piece of work, with occasional stylistic debts to Hitchcock (overlapping images on the train journey, the climactic scene in and outside the beauty salon, with its macabre shop window dummies).
(Kris)
Country: SV
Technical: bw 93m
Director: An unsettling film, which takes adults back to their most basic childhood fears while at the same time investigating the destructive power of grief over those who survive. What is interesting is how the mother begins by being the protectress, but then cedes this role to the boy in the second half. The suburban location is familiar from countless other stories of the uncanny or the possessed, and some of the scenes do wear their antecedents rather weakly, but for most of its running time this is a sustained rattling of the nerves, with more hair-prickle moments than a handful of your run-of-the-mill creepers. Formally it is a masterstroke, with the black and white artwork of the titular book perfectly echoed in the chiaroscuro of the house and its furnishings, and Davis does a spectacular job of shuttling between the Duvall and Nicholson roles in The Shining.
Cast: Inga Landgré, Stig Olin, Marianne Löfgren, Dagny Lind
Synopsis:
A selfish woman who left her child with a surrogate mother returns to the small town when she is eighteen to reclaim her and give her a job at her beauty salon in the city. The daughter's departure affects both those she leaves behind and the girl's biological mother herself, whose lover, a charming but unstable young dreamer, is attracted to her.
Review:
Bergman's first feature as director is by its own definition a comedy of manners, but features dramatic and overwrought elements that would become hallmarks, not least in its score. The mother is terminally ill, the dandy (Olin excellent) a neurasthenic lothario, and safe Mr Right back home a stolid bore: it is clear that the director's sympathies in part lie with the flighty daughter and mother, the latter grappling with age and the loss of her looks, rather than with the righteous small town characters. The rakish narration would seem to support this, and leaves us with a somewhat ambivalent conclusion. Technically it is a confident piece of work, with occasional stylistic debts to Hitchcock (overlapping images on the train journey, the climactic scene in and outside the beauty salon, with its macabre shop window dummies).