A Lesson in Love (1954)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Film Review

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."  Chaplin's truest observation about life and cinema is amply illustrated by two films in which the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman shows the slow disintegration of a marriage brought about by the passing of time.  Scenes from a Marriage (1973) takes the tragic line, an intimate portrait of a couple whose conjugal life is over but who can barely endure the torment of separation.  Its comic counterpart is A Lesson in Love, made nearly two decades earlier, which tells more or less the same story, but from a completely different angle.

A Lesson in Love is not a typical Bergman film - it is light, frivolous and occasionally silly, with a narrative structure that relies on mischievous use of flashbacks.  It's doubtful whether Bergman would even have made the film had it not been a financial necessity.  After the commercial failure of Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), Svensk Filmindustri persuaded the "gloomy Swede" to make a film with greater popular appeal, along the lines of the American romantic comedy.  Bergman seemed to have had no qualms about making such an overtly commercial film and indeed found the entire process a painless and liberating experience.  He completed the screenplay within two weeks and started shooting two weeks later.  As he said, "The whole thing was just for fun - and money."  It may also have been some kind of therapy, for Bergman had only just divorced his third wife.

A Lesson in Love certainly has a lightness of touch and cheekiness not seen in any other of Bergman's films.  The director's other famous comedy, Smiles of a Summer Night, is a much more sophisticated kind of film, better structured and with much more attention to character detail.  By contrast, A Lesson in Love is very nearly the antithesis of the kind of film Bergman most wanted to make - a film that finds humour in situations which naturally deserve a more serious treatment.  Much of the fun of this film, particularly for a Berman enthusiast, is seeing how the director constantly plays against our expectations and gives a sudden comic twist just when you feel a surge of Bergmanesque gloom about to descend.

Just because this is an amusing and entertaining film doesn't mean that it is trite, superficial or emotionally sterile.  Although the characters are shown from a comical perspective, they are just as believable as those in any other Bergman film.  They have the same contradictions and psychological flaws, the same neuroses about love and life, the same nest of inner torments.  The difference is that Bergman downplays the tragedy and amplifies the comedy, he invites us to laugh at life's myriad ironies, not become overwhelmed and depressed by them.  After all, to portray life as an endless winter gloom would be as unrealistic as to present it as a cheap French farce.   A Lesson in Love is the lighter side of Bergman's cinema, a brief sunny interlude in a long soul-stirring year of mist and clouds and frost.

Film Synopsis

David, a gynaecologist, has been married to Marianne for 15 years.  When she discovers that her husband has been sleeping with one of his patients, Marianne begins an affair with a close family friend.  Realising that he must save his marriage, David hurries to catch the train by which his wife intends to elope.  In a compartment, husband and wife confront one another and look back on their marriage, wondering where it all went wrong...