Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Crisis



Corpus Day


===

Crisis [Kris, 1946] is Bergman's first film. A banal story involving the small-town keeper of a boarding-house, her adopted teen daughter, the boarder who yearns for her, the biological mother fleshpot salon-keeper who comes to snatch her away, and the bio-mother's lover, a young kept man who himself falls for the daughter.

It's not without certain atmospheric touches, nor racy scenes around the young woman, but neither distinguish the film in the manner to which we'll become accustomed and struck by a few Bergman films after.

There's the suggestion that the salon doubles as a brothel, but neither resulting trauma nor insouciant pleasures are expanded upon within the scope of the filmed scenario. Also: a plot movement hinging on a sudden ailment in one of the characters, straight out of the Japanese playbook. (In Bergman's next film, the following year's Ship to India, a character will declare his macular degeneration shortly after a framing that wouldn't be out of place in any Ozu movie of the period.) — A slight film, but concise, bearing no hint of pretension.


===

Other writing on Ingmar Bergman at Cinemasparagus:

Kris [Crisis, 1946]

Skepp till India Land [Ship to India, 1947]

Hamnstad [Port of Call, 1948]

Törst [Thirst, 1949]


===

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.