After a prolonged period of separation, world famous pianist Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) decides to visit her daughter, Eva (Liv Ullman). Once there, she is surprised to find that her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), is no longer staying at the mental institution where Charlotte placed her, but is now living with Eva. As day moves into night, mother and daughter open up about their feelings and misgivings toward one another. Before long, Charlotte, who chose her musical career over fulfilling her role as a mother, is forced to reappraise her life and the choices she has made. By the time the night is over, the relationship between these two women undergoes a profound change. Winner of a host of international awards, this stunning and beautifully observed film features an historic union of two of Sweden's greatest international talents, Ingrid Bergman and Ingmar Bergman, working together for the first and only time.
As beautiful blonde Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) rolls into Bodega Bay in pursuit of eligible bachelor Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), she is inexplicably attacked by a seagull. Suddenly thousands of birds are flocking into town, preying on school-children and residents in a terrifying series of attacks. Soon Mitch and Melanie are fighting for their lives against a deadly force that can't be explained and can't be stopped in one of Hollywood's most horrific films of nature gone berserk.
Soon after architect Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave) marries Celia (Joan Bennett), she gradually begins to suspect that he has a past life that he's been keeping from her. But she doesn't know the half of it, and when he leaves on a business trip, she starts to uncover the sinister secret of his purpose-designed house and its apparent surplus of rooms, the seventh of which is kept firmly locked. What lies beyond its door?
United since childhood in apparent incest, two sisters struggle and part as the younger seeks her freedom in a heterosexual affair. Bergman's sombre view of modern man's condition - wherein human relations are grotesquely egocentric and perversely sexual - is a shattering vision of despair. Ester (Ingrid Thulin), Anna (Gunnel Lindblom) and Anna's son Johan (Jorgen Lidstrom) travel by train to a foreign city whose language they do not understand. In an arid hostel, Ester tries to retain her sexual hold upon her sister. Anna leaves, however, and in a nearby cabaret watches a couple making love: she picks up a man, and returns to the hotel. Playing with a kindly porter, Johan overhears Ester confronting Anna with the man in her room. Tanks roll through the city streets. Ester is dying, and several times thinks her sister has left...
One of Ingmar Bergman's key early works - directed when he was just 30 years old - 'To Joy' explores some of the themes that would come to characterise many of his later films: the incompatibility of spouses, and the responsibility of artists. Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson) and Stig (Stig Olin), both play in an orchestra conducted by Sonderby. Their relationship is a happy one, and they soon decide to get married and have children. However, things begin to turn sour when Stig begins a sordid affair that threatens to destroy their marriage and their happiness forever. Moving and evocative. 'To Joy' sees the young Bergman grappling with the complexities of human relations to striking effect, and is an early indication of what the budding director would soon be capable of.
Filmed in Germany, during Bergman's tax-related exile with a predominantly German cast and crew, 'From the Life of the Marionettes' continues the story of Katarina and Peter Egermann, the feuding, childless, professional couple who appear in 'Scenes from a Marriage'. This is an unusually raw and explicit drama in which all the scenes are shot in black and white except the opening sequence and the epilogue. Peter Egermann (Robert Atzorn), outwardly stable and well adjusted, suffers from depression, feelings of sexual inadequacy, and barely suppressed rage toward his wife, Katarina (Christine Buchegger). This eventually leads to the brutal rape and murder of a prostitute, known only as Ka, a nickname for Katarina.
On a remote island far removed from a raging civil war, Jan (Max von Sydow) and Eva (Liv Ullmann) retreat to their apolitical fortress: a small vegetable farm. But their serene existence is shattered when soldiers violently invade their home. Now caught in the crosshairs of a brutal and inhuman conflict, Jan and Eva become survivors with only one concern - to endure.
On a windswept, barren island, Andreas (Max Von Sydow) lives simply and quietly until he becomes entangled with Anna (Liv Ullmann), a beautiful, mysterious widow, and a neighbouring couple (Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson) harbouring their own sorrows and illusions. Soon, secrets from Andreas and Anna's pasts threaten to shatter not only their desperate attempt at love...but their tenuous hold on reality as well.
A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) engage in a brief, passionate affair in post war Hiroshima. Their deeply intense connection brings out scarred but fading memories of love and suffering, which Resnais communicates with the use of flashback techniques innovative to the time.
Unable to live with her mother, Berit is institutionalised for many years. When she is released from the institutions she ends up on the streets of the harbour slums of Gothenburg, and is forced to take a job. The job is conditional on her living with her mother and she becomes a young woman in deep suicidal despair. One night she escapes her mother's overbearing apartment to go to a dance and, in an effort to lighten her spirits, she meets a sailor and tells her new-found confidante of her troubled past. She starts to spend more time with him and begins to meet others, soon, she discovers that she is not the only one with problems.
Theatricality and all-too-real human frailties combine in Bergman's critique of both censorial hypocrisy and the pretensions of creative artists. A touring experimental theatre troupe provides the latter, while an austere judge (Erik Hell) investigating its supposedly obscene production reflects the director's own frustrations with authority figures during his career. The sanctity of art, and its curse, are to the fore in a revealing, polemical study of the nature of performance and its relationship to its audience, willing or not.
A chance meeting in a coffee shop between Harry (Lars Ekborg), a young errand boy, and Monika (Harriet Andersson), a wild and reckless girl who works in a nearby grocery shop, soon develops into a love affair. After a row with her father, Monika goes on a motorboat holiday. Their idyllic summer is soon shattered by the news that Monika is pregnant. Faced with sudden responsibility, Harry agrees to marry Monika and they set up home together in a small flat. Monika rapidly becomes bored with married life and looking after the baby. Soon Harry returns from a business trip to discover that his wife has been unfaithful with a former lover. A frank and tender portrait of first love, Bergman's film is also a realistic and uncompromising account of a disintegrating marriage.
A feverish collision of avant-garde aesthetics and grindhouse shocks 'Funeral Parade of Roses' takes us on an electrifying journey into the nether-regions of the late-'60's Tokyo underworld. In Matsumoto's controversial debut feature, seemingly nothing is taboo: neither the incorporation of visual flourishes straight from the worlds of contemporary graphic-design, painting, comic-books, and animation; nor the unflinching depiction of nudity, sex, drug-use, and public-toilets. But of all the "transgressions" here on display, perhaps one in particular stands out the most: the film's groundbreaking and unapologetic portrayal of Japanese gay subculture. Cross-dressing club-kid Eddie (Pîtâ) vies with a rival drag-queen (Osamu Ogasawara) for the favours of drug-dealing cabaret-manager Gonda Passions escalate and blood begins to flow - before all tensions are released in a jolting climax.
Hypnotist and magician Dr. Vogler (Max von Sydow) heads a troupe of travelling players, which includes his wife Manda (Ingrid Thulin) dressed as a male assistant. They are examined and humiliated by Dr. Vergerus (Gunnar Bjornstrand), a cynical medical officer. During a performance convened for the medical officer and his committee, Volger exerts his revenge. When the tables are turned again, the magician perpetrates an incredible illusion on the unbelieving doctor, but is now trapped within his own mystery...
Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) is a talented young ballerina. One summer, while staying with her uncle, she meets and falls in love with Henrik (Birger Malmsten), a wealthy college boy. Soon they begin spending their days together and become totally consumed with one another. But, as the summer begins to die and autumn draws in, Marie becomes troubled and is overcome with a deep feeling of unease. Then, on the morning of one of their last few days together, Henrik makes a shallow dive and suffers fatal head and back injuries. Years later, Marie becomes a prima ballerina, but her success is dulled by the pain and devastation she still feels at the loss of her first true love. Soon, a new relationship and the discovery of an old diary will awaken old memories and force her to re-examine her past.
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