This has been described as the film where Bergman really became Bergman. It's a lovely story about a hard arse ballerina who is sent a copy of her old diary - she reads it and recalls when she was young and in love. These flashback scenes are poetic and wonderful - I kept thinking of Galsworthy's Apple Tree and Nick Earls' After January. It's helped by some divine photography and Maj-Britt Nilsson is terrific as the girl.
Bergman fans will get a kick out of some (in hindsight) allusions to other works: characters eating strawberries, playing chess, etc. And when I think about it this covers much of the same ground of To Joy: a young couple in love, one of them a tormented artist (in this case it's ballet) allowing frequent cutting away to performance scenes, we know up front it's going to end badly. But this is much better - the leading couple are nicer, the middle aged man who gets involved is a threat not a kindly old buffer who provides no drama, the handling is far more sure.
The stuff on the island is magical, I found the last third less so - although it does have some great clown make up and more superb Nilsson acting.
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