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The rawest critique comes from the aspiring minister, sore with anguish amidst a sea of aphorisms: "This is too painful to be comical!" The aging roué (Gunnar Björnstrand) with the virgin wife (Ulla Jacobsson), his son the budding parson (Björn Bjelfvenstam) distracted by the swirling ass of the maid (Harriet Andersson), the grand dame of theater (Eva Dahlbeck) whose return wreaks elegant havoc, the monocled militarist with pet pistols (Jarl Kulle) and the coolly ferocious countess (Margit Carlqvist). Love and all its "loathsome business" propel their roundelay as a perfect choreography of vows broken, reshuffled and reaffirmed, with characters circling like the stone dolls on the church tower. (Because it's Ingmar Bergman winding the clock, a tiny Reaper skulks along with the chiming figurines.) "Sex is the young boy's and the old man's utmost toy," women meanwhile have male dignity to play with: Hoping to catch up with his former mistress, Björnstrand is not just speared by Dahlbeck's ironic gaze, but also slips into a puddle, is attired in a clownish nightshirt, and chased away with his tail between his legs. The peccadilloes converge at the diva's country estate, where her ancient mother (Naima Wifstrand), something of a doddering benevolent witch, lets everybody's desires loose with a toast of magic potion. The mechanical Cupid in the boudoir points up the kinship with Renoir, the sad, cuckolded wolf who pulls the trigger and gets a face full of soot reveals the debt to Ophüls. La Belle Époque, with a sardonic edge: A Bach sonata pretending to be a Mozart concerto, playfulness built on illusion and humiliation, perfumed night air that might be arsenic. Pondering romance as "both gift and punishment," Bergman fashions his most ornate mise en scène and proceeds to scrape it away with each subsequent film. Cinematography by Gunnar Fischer. With Åke Fridell, Jullan Kindahl, and Bibi Andersson. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |