Film Review
After the unremittingly grim tone of Bergman's preceding films,
To
Joy marks a distinct change in the director's outlook on life and his art.
There is darkness and a sadness to this film which is distinctly Bergmanesque, but there's
also a sense of exhilaration and gratitude for life, which is barely glimpsed in Bergman's
earlier work. With its meticulous and poignant examination of a marriage in crisis,
it presages his later films, notably
A Lesson in Love (1954) and
Scenes from a Marriage (1973).
Whilst
To Joy is an engaging and moving
work that effortlessly combines melodrama, realism and poetry, it is by no means without
its flaws. Bergman himself admitted the film was "hopelessly uneven", and it does
come dangerously close to the kind of sentimentality that he abhorred. However,
the film's biggest defect is a sequence in which one character (the conductor Sönderby)
takes over the narrative in the middle of flashback sequence which presents the memories
of another character (Stig Eriksson). It is the kind of slip you'd hardly expect
a great director like Bergman to make, and it is only because the film is so strong in
other areas (the cinematography, the acting performances, and a remarkable soundtrack
that uses music and background sound brilliantly) that he gets away with it.
Like
many of Bergman's films,
To Joy has a significant
autobiographical component. When Bergman was writing the script (during a happy
stay in the south of France), he was considering a reconciliation with his second wife
Ellen (which, in the event, never happened). Also, at the time, the director was
very preoccupied with failure - the mediocrity of Stig Eriksson (who has the ambition
to be a great concert soloist, but not the talent) representing Bergman's anxieties
over his own skill as a filmmaker. In some ways,
To
Joy is one of Bergman's most personal and revealing films.
The part of
the Sönderby was played by Victor Sjöström, a great pioneer of Swedish
cinema, who would later star in Bergman's masterpiece
Wild Strawberries (1957).
© James Travers 2007
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Next Ingmar Bergman film:
Summer Interlude (1951)
Film Synopsis
Stig Eriksson is a violist in a Swedish orchestra company. During a rehearsal, he
is informed that his wife Marta has just died in a domestic accident. Grief-stricken,
Stig looks back on his life over the past ten years, recalling his first meeting with
Marta, their marriage and the painful separation that ensued...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.