User Reviews

(Mention over the course of this review of the thematic value and development of certain elements could be considered "spoilers." If you want to come to this movie absolutely fresh, you might want to save reading this review for *after* you see the show to help focus your thoughts.)

Dreams . . . what are dreams? Where do they lead us? Dreams can lead one to a new—and unanticipated—life (*Monika*); they can be the gateway to a better understanding of an old life (*Kris*); they can possess us, and damn us (*Vargtimmen*); they can be the vapor, the chemical, which helps our exposure to the world develop into a fixed image of ourselves . . . and so it is that we come to Bergman's splendid *Kvinnodröm*, called *Dreams* in English. The first moments of the film, at a photo-shoot, tell us what we are to witness: Human beings in development, their postures, their cosmetics, their pretenses; the development takes place in the dark, the pretenses in the light: It is the dark, the unreal dream, which lights the way to reality.

As so often with Bergman, repeated viewings reveal the details which, in truth, are the dark lights which guide the story: the glances and reactions of the secondary characters, the symbols, our awareness of the disjunct parallels and how they intertwine. A silly, irresponsible girl is wiser than a cultured older man, and yet her clear-sightedness is for others, not herself; but it is her silliness, not her wisdom, which brings her a stable reality. A cool and level-headed professional woman is frantic with desire; the cold and barren fruit of her desire turns out to be the ripe fruit of knowledge. The men of our tale have their own dreams: The shallowest has the most depth, the most serious is the most insubstantial, the most heart-felt is the most heartless. A fat man taps his fingers in impatient, impotent lust; an old photographer, wise in the ways of the world, is nevertheless blithe and carefree.

Bergman works with these themes more grandiosely in other works, and yet it is the unsettling intimacy of his treatment here which, for me, has the greater effect. The dark room brings the illumination; the negative is our access to the positive; the dream is the lens to focus our reality. In his conception, in his vision, in his cinematic art, this is Bergman at his finest.

I agree with another comment here that the two stories do not have the same thematic confluence that is found in Bergman's later and more complex work. There is much to enjoy nonetheless, especially the always remarkable Gunnar Bjornstrand. Both stories end with one woman telling another woman more about herself than she would like to know and a man stands impotently at a window. Perhaps the main thing that keeps it from equaling his later works is that he did not hit upon a believable way to show the younger woman evolving. Instead she is revealed to us to be what the feral daughter of her elderly would-be patron calls her: an imbecile and borderline prostitute. At the end of the film the older woman has regained whatever sympathy the actress playing her Eva Dahlbeck and Bergman have expertly lost her and has grown as a person. The same cannot be said for Harriett Andersson's character. It is still quite an enjoyable minor film and a successful stepping stone. This film was made right on the cusp of his years when he made one masterpiece after another.

The first 15 minutes or so (especially the nightime train trip) have a striking visual style, but then the style begins to subside, and both of the stories that emerge feel conventional (a young woman being courted by a rich, lonely older man; a slightly more mature woman trying to rekindle her romance with a maried man). It's still extremely well-acted (especially by Eva Dahlbeck) - and don't miss the opening 15 minutes! **1/2 out of 4.

Kvinnodröm seems to be a drama with some absurd aspects to it.

Susanne runs a modelling business. She dreams of returning to her married lover, Henrik. Her top model, Doris, has just broken up with her boyfriend. They travel together from Stockholm to Gothenburg to complete a shoot; this involves an overnight stay.

Susanne successfully coaxes a reluctant Henrik to come to her motel where she tries to relaunch their affair. Henrik's wife, who knows all about the affair, confronts them. Henrick is not willing to leave his wife, and Susanne finally dismisses him from life.

Meantime, Doris while window shopping meets a wealthy older man, Otto, who offers to buy her extravagant clothing. We learn that Doris reminds me of his wife, who has been in a mental hospital for 23 years. They also do absurd things together like going on rides in a local fair. After they return to him home, they are interrupted by Otto's daughter who confronts her father and Doris.

Doris and Susanne return to Stockholm, where Doris reconciles with her boyfriend.

Perhaps comedy doesn't transcend time and culture.

In the beginning, there was only one Bergman and her name was Ingrid. The year 1957 finally brought to international fame the Swedish filmmaker of the same name.

Undeniably, with "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries", Ingmar Bergman established himself as the most promising and influential film-maker of his generation, His importance as both a director and explorer of the human condition immediately went without saying, and no film he made ever contradicted his reputation. Bergman is perhaps the director who comes the closest to every of his peers agreeing that he's the greatest. But greatness doesn't pop out of nowhere; you just don't become a gifted film-maker without learning about film-making first.

Like Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford, Bergman had to make 'his bones', to make his share of movies whose fate would be to be recognized by a fistful of experts, but that's the price for technical talent: exploiting before plotting, experimenting before exploring, testing before stating and reacting before creating. "Dreams" is one of Bergman's 'pre-1957' movies, and what's more, it is the last one made before "The Seventh Seal". To use a metaphor, "Dreams" is like the last drop of water before some beautiful flower would finally bloom, like the last contemplation of a quiet internal comfort before the big dive into the most fascinating depths of human complexities.

There are some premises of a coming genius in the portrayals of these two women: Suzanne (Eva Dahlbeck) the owner of a model agency and Doris (Harriet Anderson) her most popular model. Suzanne seems a bit older, something between five or ten years, enough for maturity and leadership. She holds her cigarette with a disillusioned look that reconciles between American film-noir and French New Wave. In a way, she's a femme-fatale who'd be her own victim. Doris exudes a totally different beauty, more lively and youthful, as if Harriett Anderson hadn't lost the magnificent and sensual appeal of her role as Monika from Bergman's erotic romance.

In the model agency ruled by a sleazy fat boss, and a few effeminate photographers, Doris breaks up with her boyfriend right before leaving town. The friend seems like a good-hearted but dim-witted fellow and between them, it's a love-and-hate relationship that flirts with comic relief. Yet Bergman's point is to highlight a paradoxical attitude in Doris: she wants freedom but dares her friend to leave her, she thinks her beauty allows her some liberty but is reluctant to take chances. This paradox also strikes Suzanne who, during the crucial train scene, is at the edge of committing suicide, as If she came at a point of her life with no light after the tunnel.

Before the photography session, the two women split up and surprisingly, the film starts focusing on Doris. She meets an elegant and distinguished man who describes himself as an Aging consul. His name is Otto and he's played by Gunnar Björnstrand, Bergman's long-time partner. Although only 46 at the time of the film, his hair is whiter to make him look 10 years older and accentuate the gap with Doris. He buys her a beautiful dress, a pearl collier, some food, they go to carnival, in some scenes that would have looked like a reminiscence of "Nights of Cabiria" if the film wasn't made before. Doris, thinking she deserves it, she accepts to have a sugar-daddy, smiling the kind of smile that suggests there's nothing harmful in such relationship.

The idyll goes on until his daughter comes home and treats Doris like a whore, and although reluctant to call her dad a 'dirty old man', she understands he's only exploiting Doris' resemblance with his wife to fulfill some illusions. Doris finally leaves the house but when she tries to be affectionate with Otto, he dismisses her. That moment is particularly heart-breaking in its unfairness, the viewer inevitably empathizes with Doris, although not denying that she had it coming. It wasn't her fault, but as a beauty model, she knew the price to pay when you expose herself to the wrong kind of viewers. It's all about how people look at you, and sometimes, the streets isn't the right perspective.

The same social weight disturbs Suzanne's romantic interlude with Henri. She wants him, madly and deeply, she's ready to share him for a few weeks with his wife even if it was possible, she hardly tries to hide her neediness. The scene is also interrupted by an intruder, supposedly representing the 'good side', she's the wife, and brandishing the flag of her wealth, she forces her husband to surrender and abandon his invitation to Oslo. Suzanne tries to cope with it with dignity but when Henri comes back, she lowers her guard again. 'Society' and 'normal people' is perhaps the closest thing to antagonists, in the way they portray men as weaklings when they choose to judge instead of act.

I like to see in "Dreams", not just an immersion in the hearts of women of 'bad reputation' but a strong denunciation of the weight of social morals and the way they hypocritically condemn some actions that remain driven by harmless desires. At the end, Doris accepts to be with Palle, because she's in love with him the way he is, and it will never be as ugly as that wife who 'loves' her husband only because she knows he can't leave her, the same man tries to cancel off the first impression, by inviting Suzanne again, but she tears up the letter. She learned how to say no.

As a man, I can relate to that weakness, where we postpone the right reaction for the most convenient reasons. Things haven't changed a bit, we allow ourselves to judge women who exposes themselves in the paper or in the streets, except that through our own lust, they expose our own hypocrisy and inner weakness. Simple but genius, and this is isn't even Bergman's best.