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MovieMail's Review
Prison is a pivotal and curiously neglected entry in Ingmar Bergman's canon. Harking back to the German Expressionism that was then his stylistic obsession, it also anticipates images and themes that would recur in the likes of The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Even the flickering silent film that writer Birger Malmsten and unhappy hooker Doris Svedlund watch in their attic hideaway returns in fragmentary form in Persona.
While some of the symbolism is heavy-handed (particularly during Svedlund's harrowing dream sequence), Bergman offers intriguing insights into the interaction of real life and screen illusion and considers in depth, for the first time, the nature of humanity's relationship to God and whether there's more to existence than snatches of happiness amidst endless suffering.
This is the work of an artist coming to terms with his medium, and Bergman indulges in flourishes that have always tempted neophyte filmmakers. But from the Caligari-esque opening, in which professor Anders Henrikson leaves an asylum to suggest a film about the brutality of life to director Hasse Ekman, Bergman's shifts between Expressionism, neo-realism and noir also reveal a remarkable cinematic maturity.
Aka The Devil's Wanton. An experimental work that the producer allowed Bergman to make, as long as it was shot for next to nothing. In it a director shares his memories with a journalist whilst filming an ill-fated passage from his past. Themes of suicide and faith are addressed and it's also the film in which the silent movie parody that appears at the opening of Persona was used.
How many more early Bergman classics is Tartan going to make available? This company is doing an inestimable service to lovers of European art cinema – and none of the... more >
How many more early Bergman classics is Tartan going to make available? This company is doing an inestimable service to lovers of European art cinema – and none of these early Bergman movies is less than interesting, even if few attain the mastery of his later work. What a shame that Bergman’s later masterpiece Sawdust and Tinsel/The Naked Night remains a no-show on DVD. < less
