[Hamnstad, Hafenstadt]

SE 1948, R: Ingmar Bergman mit Nine-Christine Jönsson, Bengt Eklund, Mimi Nelson, 99 Min, OmeU

The young and restless Bergman tries yet another filmic tradition here with this human story in the neorealist mode: 'I still had nothing of my own to offer.

I just grabbed helplessly at any form that might save me.' The result is a naturalistic city film, in which one finds the closest thing to overt social critique in Bergman's entire oeuvre. Here the issues facing the young working-class girl Berit are a grotesquely hypocritical mother, a troubled past, difficulties building a future with her present lover, and a friend who dies after a back-alley abortion. Especially noteworthy in comparison with the other early Bergman films is the fact that the main characters choose a narrative resolution in real life instead of in some extra-social, extra-narrative space. The cinematographer who helped capture the grittiness of the waterfront milieu here is newcomer Gunnar Fischer, who became Bergman's main photographer throughout the 1950s.