Tartan Video notches another two movies in their series of Ingmar Bergman releases, this time it’s ‘Eva’ , which was written by Bergman but directed by veteran Swedish director Gustaf Molander (Intermezzo ), and ‘Waiting Women’ (please see separate review for details).
‘Eva’ is a story of Bo (Birger Malmsten), a Swedish sailor during World War II returning home for two days of shore leave. On his way there by train his childhood memories start flooding back.
As a youngster, the 12-year-old rebellious Bo (Lasse Sarri) sets out to run away from home. Jumping on a train he meets up with a trio of Austrian minstrels accompanied by a young blind girl, Marthe (Anne Carlsson). The minstrels entertain the young Bo and foretell his future, not everything will smell of roses throughout his life but he will have his share of joy too. Marthe, the daughter of one of the minstrels, is desperate for company and revels in the presence of the young Bo. They agree they will run away together and this is where tragedy strikes as Marthe is accidentally killed.The childhood memories come and go throughout his journey and finally he reaches home into the arms of his family. He is told of is sickly uncle and meets Eva (Eva Stiberg), a childhood sweetheart. They admit their feelings for each other and embark on a somewhat stifled relationship. The attitudes of the time are summed up perfectly by Bo’s Aunt when she asks Eva about the mark on her lip, relating it to a story of another girl who had a sore appear on her lip one day and a bastard son the next.
We next see Bo out of the navy and working a musician in a jazz club, back in the city away from family, friends and his now fiancée Eva. He is staying with his friend Goran (Stig Olin) and his flirtatious vamp of a girlfriend, Susanne (Eva Dahlbeck). Here the sexual predator Susanne and the seedy Goran mix up the naive Bo almost to cracking point and he has never been so close to the dividing line between life and death himself. Tragedy again seems about to strike. This section of the movie is probably the most out of synch with the rest. Almost in the realms of noir with the femme fatale in the shape of the scantily clad Susanne and its frank sexual politics seem too extreme for the rest of this moody melodrama.Again we have a shift in time and place, Bo and Eva are living out on a remote island and Eva has quite a bun in the oven. Whenever there is happiness on the horizon dark clouds are never far behind.
The theme of death has appeared in numerous of Bergman’s movies and this is an early example, the mains coming to the gritty realisation that death is part of life itself, that one cannot exist without the other. It is a tad downbeat and over dramatic but will shine above most of today’s soap operas and is a worthy example of a fledgling Bergman and as an early exploration of what was to come to fruition in his later movies. The film on the whole is very episodic with its jumps in time, place and theme, which do hamper the enjoyment factor.
The quality of the black and white print used is fine, with hardly any distortion, scratched or grainy segments. It has clear white optional subtitles and is presented in its original Swedish dialogue (Dolby 2.0 channel). There are a few extras but do not amount to much, they are typed filmographies for Molander, Dahlbeck and Malmsten and a few trailers for other Tartan Bergman releases.
'Eva' is out to own now and available via
Amazon UK in the UK and as of yet has no US release date.
You can read more about the DVD in our
database .
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