Ingmar Bergman: Volume 2

Released: 8th November 2021. A collection of eight Ingmar Bergman films from 1951-58. In 'Summer Interlude' (1951) Mari (Maj-Britt Nilsson), a young ballerina, seeks refuge from an unhappy homelife by staying with her uncle and aunt on an island near Stockholm. Despite her uncle's possessiveness, Mari falls for a young man, Henrik (Birger Malmsten), and before she has to return to the city, they express their love for one another. But Henrik is killed in a swimming accident, and Mari has to return to the city and cope with a life alone. Years later, when she discovers her diary of her stay on the island, Mari returns to the island to confront her uncle. With the past finally dealt with she returns to her life of dancing and her new lover with a renewed outlook. In 'Waiting Women' (1952) the wives of four brothers relate to each other the stories of their marriages as they sit in a summer cottage and wait for their husbands to return, stories that include infidelity, light-hearted romance, and the difficulties of raising children. While they talk, one of the women's young sister, Maj (Gerd Andersson), is planning to elope without her sister's knowledge. 'Summer With Monika' (1953) stars Harriet Andersson as Monika Eriksson, a girl from Stockholm who falls in love with a young man on holiday. When Monika becomes pregnant, they are forced into a marriage, which begins to fall apart soon after they take up residence in a cramped little flat. In 'A Lesson of Love' (1954) Gunnar Bjornstrand and Eva Dahlbeck star as David and Marianne Erneman, a couple who have been married for 16 years and find themselves in need of a little diversion. David, who is a gynaecologist, throws professional parameters to the wind and embarks on an affair with one of his patients, while Marianne, in retaliation, promptly departs for Copenhagen to take up with an old flame, Carl-Adam (Ake Gronberg) - who also happens to be David's oldest friend. Only when his own affair ends and he spends the day with his teenage daughter, Nix (Harriet Andersson), does David decide to follow Marianne to Denmark and try to win her back. 'Smiles of a Summer Night' (1955) focuses on a group of couples, ex-couples and would-be couples during a midsummer weekend in 1900. During the course of the weekend a game of love ensues between the players as three couples meet, separate and exchange partners. In 'The Seventh Seal' (1957), Bergman's iconic allegorical drama, when knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) returns from the Crusades to his plague-ridden homeland he engages Death (Bengkt Ekerot) in a game of chess. This leads the knight to ponder the question of whether or not God exists. 'Wild Strawberries' (1957), starring Victor Sjostrom, charts the journey of aged Professor Isak Borg (Sjostrom) as he travels by car to his old alma mater, where he is to receive an honorary degree. Accompanied by his daughter-in-law, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), who is travelling to meet her estranged husband, the Professor finds himself the subject of unsettling visions from his past, recalling lost loves and his own failed marriage. As the pair are interrupted by a youthful love triangle and a feuding older couple Isak is forced to confront his own coldness, and the possibility that his life has been wasted. Finally, in 'The Magician' (1958) von Sydow plays a 19th century mesmerist who is charged with blasphemy and questioned by the authorities, in an attempt to prove him a fraud.