[Kris]

SE 1946, R: Ingmar Bergman mit Inga Landgré, Stig Olin, Marianne Löfgren, 93 Min, OmeU

Bergman's film debut as a director already combines some of the master’s signature elements. The foster daughter of a small town piano teacher is courted by her biological mother's decadent lover.

The seductions and disillusionments of city life play counterpoint to provincial goodness in this morality tale of a young daughter pulled between the worlds of her two mothers. Bergman later disclaimed responsibility for the story by saying, "If someone had asked me to film the telephone catalogue I would have done so." One can imagine that Bergman's version of the phone book at this point in his career might have been the same fascinating jumble of cinematic styles that one can find in Crisis, where the French cinema of the thirties meets expressionistic lighting, an early attempt at a Bergmanian dream sequence, and introspective mirror shots. Most interesting is perhaps the arrogant and debonair seducer, Jack. Reportedly added surreptitiously to the script by Bergman just before shooting began, Jack is a foreign irritant in this otherwise banal narrative, as well as a harbinger of tortured characters to come in Bergman's other early films.

“A few days after the premier of Crisis, the telephone rang. It was Lorens, saying: 'Dear Ingmar. That was an awful film, hard to imagining anything worse! I suppose your phone is ringing off the hook with offers.'" (Ingmar Bergman)

„mentored by veteran director Victor Sjöström (the future star of 1957’s Wild Strawberries), he survived a difficult shoot and a hamstringing blend of stylistic ambition and indecision to create a poetic realist study of conflicted women that foreshadowed The Silence (1963), Persona (1966) and Cries and Whispers (1972).” (bfi.org.uk)

Bereits in seiner ersten Filminszenierung entwickelt Ingmar Bergman Merkmale, die in seinen großen Werken immer wieder vorkommen werden: die Figur des Künstlers, den allwissenden Erzähler, die Wahrheit des Spiegelbildes, die ironische Wendung. (berlinale.de)