Bergman 9: Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)

Literally "Evening of the Jesters", apparently, though I don't think the English title is as bad as Robin Wood does (in his little Movie book about Bergman). This has an intriguing, odd, leisurely structure at the outset, easing us gently into the film's world with extended shots of the train of circus carriages making their way along, before rather abruptly entering an oddly grotesque flashback that tips its hat to silent cinema and is indeed often silent, even when characters are yelling at the tops of their voices. Fellini and Béla Tarr (again) come to mind. Eventually we get into more familiar Bergman territory, but the route taken to get here lingers in the mind, unsettling our sense of the kind of thing we're watching. It's another story of an unhappy couple - albeit one who achieve a resignation at the end that is pretty close to a "happy" ending - with Harriet Anderson playing a variation on Monika; but this time there is a more even-handed treatment of the two parties, both of whom develop by realising that their fantasies of escape are just that, fantasies. The English title nods at the film's concern with the different between living one's life and just "acting at" living it; the film somehow suggests both that these are two different things and that the latter is simply a version of the former. (An "actual" scene threatening suicide is prefigured by a rehearsal of a rather hammy theatrical death scene that nonetheless requires real effort from the actor and makes a genuine impression on Anderson's character.) There's a symmetry to the structure (as there is in Summer with Monika, come to think of it); the grotesque use of silence and noise returns at the end in the climactic duel, as do paired characters in discussion, framed against the sky. Some very strong visuals once again, prefiguring The Seventh Seal in places (most obviously the silhoutted figures and caravans) - this film marks the first appearance in a Bergman film of Sven Nykvist's cinematography.