Monday 15 September 2008

MUSIK I MORKER/Music in Darkness/Night is My Future (1948)


MUSIC IN DARKNESS is, I believe, the great Ingmar Bergman's second film as a director. It is essentially, a lightweight piece (certainly by Ingmar's stands) about a young musician who is blinded due to an accident during his military service. A young girl is hired to be his "eyes" and she falls in love with him. The film is of the boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy meets girl again type of romantic fiction but played out against Bergman's more familiar artistic angst and dark nights of the soul. It is competently done and you can see the budding director's style beginning to form already. Good performances by Birger Malmsten and Mai Zetterling as the lovers and look out for a young Gunnar Bjornstrand as a bitter, angry violinist. Bergman doesn't let me down and includes in the first few minutes of the film a brief dream sequence of pure gothic horror. Rating ***

1 comment:

Cerpts said...

Hmmm. I've become quite a Bergman fan lately, as you know. It's nice to know that even his very early films are worth watching; if for nothing else but the chance to see a young Gunner Bjornstrand!