Already in Music in Darkness (also known as Night Is My Future) there is plenty of evidence of the inferiority complexes and masochism that are to be found in Bergman’s more mature work. A young man is blinded at a rifle range during his military service and wanders from one unwholesome preoccupation to another. His sole regular companion, a destitute young woman, eventually marries him. The film’s ostensible concern is with the blind man’s desire to be treated as an ordinary and not an inferior member of the community, but the stylistic emphasis is on pain and anguish. Between more restrained realistic scenes, Bergman uses starkly effective expressionist techniques to describe the nightmare into which sudden blindness plunges his hero. The thematic movement is from despair to acceptance, but the moments of pure horrorolike the sightless stroll along the railway tracksoleave a stronger impression.
1947.
English subtitles.
Black and white.
85 mins.