Bergman's film about five women waiting in a summer cottage for their husbands to arrive, and talking of defining moments in their relationships is much like a earlier run-through of the tone and themes from his 1955 Smiles of a Summer's Night, with a number of the same actors delivering fine performances. Dahlbeck and Bjornstrand are typically excellent and Maj-Britt Nilsson is just as alluring as she is in Summer Interlude.
Fascinating early Bergman in which three wives recount incidents from their respective marriages. Acting and writing is non-pareil, even if Bergman’s genius is still e... more >
Fascinating early Bergman in which three wives recount incidents from their respective marriages. Acting and writing is non-pareil, even if Bergman’s genius is still embryonic. < less
Waiting Women, set on a remote island in the Stockholm archipelago, examines one of Bergman’s favourite themes, the relationship between men and women. The wives of f... more >
Waiting Women, set on a remote island in the Stockholm archipelago, examines one of Bergman’s favourite themes, the relationship between men and women. The wives of five brothers have gathered around a table late in the evening, waiting for their husbands to return from a business trip to Copenhagen. The decision of three of the women to share the defining moments of their relationships with the others, divides the film into three separate sequences. Using only female narrators, Bergman focuses on the viewpoint of the woman, and in all three episodes, the man is portrayed as the weaker party. Rakel recalls owning up to her adulterous affair with her childhood love to her husband, who, after a violent display of emotion, agrees to have her back on the basis that loneliness is more unbearable than deception. Marta remembers rediscovering her emotions for the father of her child whilst in the hospital about to give birth, in an anaesthesia-fuelled dream of romance and Parisian can-can clubs. Karin muses over finding her way back to her husband’s heart while they were trapped in a lift together overnight. The three pieces are radically contrasting in presentation, the centrepiece slow and powerful, with almost no dialogue, and the final piece with witty and flirtatious dialogue and camera work reminiscent of Hitchcock. Tension is added to the present by the constant interruptions of Maj, whose young and idealistic views clash with those of the older women. Maj represents the ideals they used to have, that were buried and forgotten about in favour of their present, more realistic, existence. Bergman’s points on relationships are rather negative; the women have resigned to a fate much less splendid than they had originally envisaged, and they are left waiting, not just for their husbands to return, but for something to save them from the everyday they are forced to live with. However, the endnote is without bitterness, as the women accept the decision of young Maj to follow the same dream that had let them all down. In addition to its in-depth exploration of human relationships and its beautiful cinematography, Waiting Women celebrates some of the most brilliant Swedish acting talent of the time, some of which are one-hit wonders in the Bergman catalogue. < less
