On Superpowers

Why one nation takes a higher ground or falls back leaving room for another doesn’t arise solely from the nations themselves. In such a case superpowers mean that they have come to their position of power by means that they cannot justify themselves. In such a case if they throw their weight around what do they mean? Is it not that they justify rule of the might? The mighty keeps their position unchallenged by the way they can silence opposition.  Their governance is a show of their superiority and laws are one-sided to protect their lawlessness and punish those who are client states and the governed.  One need only look at England’s role in the opium wars in China during the Manchu dynasty. In the present post let me show how England responded to the great famine in India (1876–78) when Lord Lytton was the viceroy.
His uncompromising implementation of Britain’s trading policy is blamed for the severity of the famine, which killed up to 10 million people. (The relief workers were paid a reduced wage on the curious belief that any excessive payment might create dependency among the famine-afflicted population! The mindset of superpower creates its own rationale and the minions who run the colony see to that no protest against their lawlessness is heard outside.)
The Great Famine was to have a lasting political impact on events in India.
The British administrators in India who were unsettled by the official reactions to the famine and, in particular by the stifling of the official debate about the best form of famine relief, were William Wedderburn and A. O. Hume. Less than a decade later, they would found the Indian National Congress and, in turn, influence a generation of nationalists such as Dadabhai Naoroji and Romesh Chunder Dutt.
A superpower in short shortchanges principles of equity and justice at so many levels.
Benny

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Balzac Writes a Play

Théophile  Gautier himself no mean writer has left this account of Balzac’s attempt to write a play. Hard pressed for cash the celebrated author Honoré de Balzac got the advance for a play, which was to be on Vautrin, a character from Père Goriot. Hartel, the manager of Porte-St.Martin Theatre, as luck would have it was in need of a play. Père Goriot was already a success and M. Hartel agreed. Frédérick Lemaitre(who figures in the film Les Enfants du Paradis-1945) was to play the title role. Gautier and a few others were roped in to hear the reading of the play.
At last they assembled on the premises of the tailor Buisson, in the rue de Richelieu where a room was furnished for the purpose.
‘So here is Théo at last!’  Balzac cried,’Lazy and late as ever. You should have been here an hour ago…I’ve got to read Hartel a five act play tomorrow.’
‘And you want our opinion?’ we asked setting ourselves in our armchairs with the air of men preparing for a long session.
Perceiving from our attitude Balzac said with perfect simplicity: ‘It isn’t written.’
‘For Heaven’s sake!’I exclaimed, ‘In that case you’ll have to postpone the reading for six weeks.’
‘Not a bit of it. We’re going to knock off this dramorama and raise the wind. Just now my arrears are pretty heavy.’
‘But we can’t do it between now and tomorrow. There won’t be time to copy it.’
‘This is how I arranged it. You’ll do one act, Ourliac another, Laurent- Jan the third, de Belloy the fourth and I’ll do the fifth-and I’ll read it by midday tomorrow as agreed. One act of play is only four or five hundred lines and anyone can write five hundred lines of dialogue in a day and night.’
‘Well, if you’ll tell me the subject and give me the scenario and let me know something about the characters, I’ll get to work,’ I said not a little alarmed.
‘Oh Lord,’ he cried, with a look of superb astonishment and magnificent scorn, ‘if I’ve got to tell you what it is all about we shall never get it done!’
Needless to say it was not done in time.
Compiler: benny(  Prometheus: the life of Balzac by André Maurois)

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Salieri-amadeus film

Antonio Salieri (1750-1825)

Leopold Mozart, father of the composer called him ‘a scheming egotist,’ which perhaps was right. The kapellemister of Joseph II and the younger composer became quite friendly towards the end of Mozart’s life.

Salieri was highly regarded  as a teacher and his pupils include Hummel,Beethoven,Schubert and Liszt.

selected from Mozart,the man,the musician

by Arthur Hutchings

benny

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Disraeli Anecdotes-1

Even when Disraeli was young he lived by the maxim:’To govern men you must either excel them in their accomplishments or despise them.”Dizzy hated every bodily exertion and everything his contemporaries were passionate about. While at Malta he happened to remain in the galley watching English officer at a game of tennis. Ever at pains to play a dandy he picked the ball which flew and stopped by his side. While the player waited for the ball to be thrown back he gingerly picked it up. With exaggerated affectation he asked the one near to him for the ball to be forwarded to the court. His excuse was that he had never thrown a ball in his life.
5.
Disraeli Contests
In 1832 Disraeli stood for High Wycombe as a radical. From the portico of the Red Lion he spoke with flourishes and verve for one and a half hours. Winding up his speech to the electorate he declaimed pointing the head of the lion above,” When the poll is declared I shall be there,” and pointing to the tail he continued,”my opponent will be there.” The mob applauded him warmly but the Corporation and burgesses who controlled the election consigned him to the tail.
6.
After many futile attempts to enter the House of Commons Disraeli managed with the active support to enter the House on 1837. On Dec.7 he rose to make his maiden speech, following Daniel O’Connel whose Irish Party gave the Whigs their majority. His elaborate sentences and stylish manner were to the radicals, like red flag waving before a bull. They had not forgotten his attacks on O’connel a few years ago. They laughed uproariously as he began and despite his persistent appeals to gain a hearing he was booed at. Nevertheless he persisted and he was barely audible. He said,”I am not at all surprised at the reception I have experienced. I have begun several things many times, and I have often succeeded at last as they had done before me.”More hubbub. Upto this point he had appeared unruffled and good humored. But now in a voice almost a scream he shot out,”I sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.”
compiler: benny

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Candid Comments

In 1975 Charlie Chaplin summed up his astonishing career in films as follows,”I went into this business for money and art grew out of it,”

2.

George Orwell author of ‘Animal Farm’ and ’1984′ once told an interviewer that the prime reason he wrote books was his old fifth grade teacher might see his work and be remorseful that she had misjudged him.

3.

Asked what was needed to make a successful piano vituoso, concert pianist Oscar Levant replied,”Talent,imagination,energy,determination,-and a very rich wife.”

4.

When world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano was asked who had hit him the hardest during his career,he shrugged,”That is easy-the tax collecter.”

compiler:benny

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Biological Imperative

Green algae form the basis of Arctic food chain. The March sun that filters through the Arctic Sea helps their growth and they form the staple diet for the Arctic carp; ring seals survive the extreme Arctic cold by feeding on these carps. Polar bears survive in turn by preying upon the seals. It is possible only because of an order that drives each life form to run on predictable lines. Such a certainty is the basis for the food chain.

This order is created because of material nature: each species express it and in that process have also acquired an ability to anticipate events.
How these species connect to one another in terms of survival is drawn from wisdom and power, a finite aspect of Cosmic Mind.

Oneness is in all and through all: so much so every life form is of same weight with reference to it.
How we limit purpose or usefulness of other species speaks more of our ignorance than truth.
benny

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Point-Counterpoint

In the medieval India there lived a mystic on this side of River Godavari. Before he became the teacher of Truth he was called Gampa Guru. He grew up among ordinary folks, all weavers belonging to same community. In Kothipalli of course one knew his place and the weavers were almost at the bottom, a cut above the untouchables. As a boy he knew one who had changed all that. He was  Mahirshi Shoonya to whom kings and the poor alike gave respect. Naturally the folks of Kothipalli made much of the sage and his great gifts. He was a devotee of Brahma, the creator and he settled himself at the foot of the Himalayas below a shrine that was dedicated to Shiva, the destroyer. Shiva is in the Hindu pantheon of gods, a manifestation of the Trinity. To every pilgrim who passed him  to do obeisance to the image of him in the form of a Shivalinga, Maharshi Shoonya would say, ‘Remember Brahma, the ultimate principle!”
“But we have come to worship, Shiva the destroyer!”
“Just the same mind Brahma. Will you?”
All the pilgrims took him for one with special gifts, touched by gods meaning that he had lost his marbles.
Once young Gampa Guru alias Paramartha, went to the Shrine in the company of his father. Mahirshi as usual called out to them to mind Brahma. “I have come for neither, Mahirshi” Gampa Guru replied,” I have come to show respect to you?”
“If so why visit Shiva? Brahma is the one you ought to worship.”
The boy asked,  “Pray what is your name?”

“Shunya as in Punya.” ( Nothingness as in Holiness )
Turning to his father, the boy whispered, ”See him, father the one who sits there?” “That mad Mahirshi who tries to distract all to worship Brahma instead?”
“He isn’t against Shiva! “ the boy said seriously,” He says consider the seed of Life, consider the creator!” The old Mahirshi who overheard him came to him and told the father of the boy,” He ought to sit there instead of me.” His father was surprised beyond words.
*The whole universe is spun out of opposites. We approach Life in order to be swallowed by Death. We gather wealth and prestige while we lose something else in the bargain. Matter is of material nature that allows our senses to make some sense out of it. Whereas every matter comes with its abstract nature as well. When we speak of God or light as ideas we are also setting up Satan or Darkness by the same token.
benny

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Knife In The Water-1962

Knife in the Water (Polish: Nóż w wodzie) was one of the surprising discoveries of the 1963 season when it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1963 Academy Awards. The filmmaker Roman Polanski with his debut became bracketed with Orson Welles who had similarly made a name with Citizen Kane. Both were mavericks, who flouted norms and later got on the wrong side of the Establishment for different reasons. Knife in the water brought Polanski fame and respect in the film community (and also got him on the cover of Time).
This 1962 film directed by Roman Polański features only three characters out of which two of the actors (Jolanta Umecka, who plays Krystyna and Zygmunt Malanowicz, who plays the young man) had virtually no previous professional experience. Roman Polanski had intended to take on the role of the young hitchhiker himself, but Jerzy Bossak, head of the Polish film unit KAMERA (who held the control over the production), vetoed the idea. Bossak didn’t consider the director attractive enough. ( Curiously he let Polansky dub the voice of Malanowicz over. He had a  strong, well developed bass voice, which was quite inappropriate for the character.)
This film in essentials forms part of trilogy of films based around a psychological ménage-à-trois with _Cul-de-Sac (1966)_ and Death and the Maiden (1994). All three films feature a couple whose lives are turned upside down by an outside character.
In a nutshell the film deals with rivalry and sexual tension between a couple who pick up an young student, a hitchhiker.
Synopsis
Andrzej and Krystyna are driving to a lake to go sailing when they come upon a young man hitchhiking in the middle of the road. After nearly hitting him, Andrzej sarcastically invites the young man to sit behind and to take a nap while they continue driving. When they arrive at the docks, instead of leaving the young man behind, the man invites him over.
Andrzej , the husband is a brute and unpleasant to boot while Kataryna his wife who, as typical of the female species knows when to assert her power over him. We are let in from their brief verbal exchanges that he married beneath his station and he intends to have his way whether right or wrong. Having picked up the younger man he could have let him go on his way. No instead he wants to continue the psychological cat-and mouse game: he knows he is in a dominant position.( At the beginning of the film we see him take over the wheel from his wife.) He has next set his sailboat as the stage for the game. The hitchhiker, as he had rightly calculated is wet behind his ears in the areas he thinks he is an expert, like the sailboat he commandeers. He as the captain is in control over his crew, his wife and the hitchhiker.
Tension gradually builds between Andrzej and the unnamed hitchhiker as they vie for the attentions of the young wife. As the threesome head out to open water, the husband and the student start a kind of jealous sparring which keeps Kataryna mildly amused. She knows the reason and she lets it develop as if she is not involved. What began as a mild battle of wills ends up in a fight that has the student falling overboard and the husband swimming to shore for help.
But things are not what they seem: the wife who is ever browbeaten into submission by her husband merely seems to have acquiesced but not left the contest  completely; as the hitchhiker who has not surfaced from water may seem to have met some disastrous end. Yes, appearances are deceptive, as the husband will soon discover.
The title refers to the climatic point in the film when Andrzej taunts the young man  and drops his pocket knife and it falls in the water.
Krzysztof Komeda’s music is used in the film.

Directed by     Roman Polanski
Produced by     Stanislaw Zylewicz
Written by     Jerzy Skolimowski
Roman Polański
Jakub Goldberg
Starring     Leon Niemczyk
Jolanta Umecka
Zygmunt Malanowicz
Roman Polanski (voice)
Running time     94 min
Language     Polish
‘Knife in the Water is a symbolic film;…directly related to the communistic controversy. Poland’s hard-line leader Wlandislaw Gomulka condemned the film at the 13th Plenary Session of the Communist Party (http://www.cafeinternet.co.uk/).The power struggle between Andrjez and the young hitchhiker demonstrates the rebellion against dictatorship after WWII.
Furthermore demonstrating competition relating to communism, the hiker has a specific skill with the knife he brings aboard… and Andrzej become curious, trying to perform the same tricks as the boy…is symbolic of the people and their skills, talents and beliefs’.
(  Quoted from: Knife in the Water: Displaying Cultural Symbolism? By Kristin Fuller and Robin Seaton-May 1, 2000)
Trivia:
*  Co-screenwriter Jerzy Skolimowski also was interested in playing the young hitchhiker’s part.

* Initially, Polanski wanted to make a criminal story about a couple which takes a young hitchhiker to a boat trip, and at the end the boy dies in mysterious circumstances. In his version the trip was about a week long a involved some other characters. It was Jerzy Skolimowski who proposed to shorten it to one day and limit the number of characters. The final script was created in only three, four days by Polanski, Skolimowski and Jakub Goldberg in Polanski’s apartment. While writing the script they were playing the dialogue, changing the roles all the time.

* The boat used in the movie is rumored to be a former property of Hermann Goering, the Nazi party member and a friend of Adolf Hitler, who used to spend summer holidays in the palace in Sztynort neighboring the filming locations. Sunk during World War II in the Mazurian Lakes, it was restored and is — up to present date — owned by Almatur Travel Agency located in Gizycko, Poland, very popular in Polish showbiz-related circles. The real name of the boat is “Rekin” (“The Shark”).

#  During one of top mast shots, the cameramen Jerzy Lipman was tied to the mast and hold a camera. Although the wind was not strong, the mast swung and the camera was heavy, so it was very difficult to take a good shot. All the time the director Roman Polanski was very excited about the shot and kept asking how it was going. Lipman got very angry and said “Fuck! It is fucking beautiful!” and… dropped the camera to the water. He had forgotten to attach it with the safety cable. The Arriflex camera couldn’t be found by the divers and still lies somewhere in the lake.

# The first scene in the film shows Andrzej and Krystyna driving a car. As shooting from the platform in front of the car was not yet available, the crew was tied to the car, standing on its mask. To get the proper light effects, they held a blanket with a small hole for the camera. Leon Niemczyk (Andrzej) was really driving this car quite fast (this was crucial to this scene), but he couldn’t see anything. He drove the car using the tops of the trees to imagine where the road is.

# After the movie became known in US, Polanski was given a proposal to remake the film in English with some known Hollywood actors (rumors talk about Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor), but he turned it down as he didn’t want to “repeat himself”.

# The couple’s car, seen in the opening and closing sequences, was initially supposed to be a Mercedes, but this was replaced with a Peugeot during filming to avoid political controversy.

# The first Polish film to be nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar.

# This was Roman Polanski’s directorial debut, and the only film he ever made in his native Poland. Shortly after the film was released, Polanski emigrated to France (then to England, and then to the US), where he established his international fame.

Similar Movies
Cul-de-Sac  (1966, Roman Polanski)
Dead Calm  (1989, Phillip Noyce)
Kill Cruise  (1990, Peter Keglevic)
Bitter Moon  (1992, Roman Polanski)
Dark Harbor  (1998, Adam Coleman Howard)
Dead In the Water  (2001, Gustavo Lipsztein)
Open Water  (2003, Chris Kentis)
Red Lights  (2004, Cédric Kahn)
The Lightship  (1985, Jerzy Skolimowski)
Alexandra’s Project  (2003, Rolf de Heer)
Movies of Polanski
The Tenant  (1976, Roman Polanski)
Che?  (1973, Roman Polanski)
Repulsion  (1965, Roman Polanski)
Chinatown  (1974, Roman Polanski)
Rosemary’s Baby  (1968, Roman Polanski)
Macbeth  (1971, Roman Polanski)
Frantic  (1988, Roman Polanski)
Bitter Moon  (1992, Roman Polanski) The  Pianist, Tess and Death and Maiden are other movies
( Ack:allmovie,imdb and wikipedia)
Compiler:benny

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For Mother’s Day-oops I’m late

A MOTHER FOR ALL SEASONS ©

God was very busy. But he heard the cry just the same. He knew a child was calling for attention. He turned to all those papers piled high before him. He said: “I cannot make it today. What shall I do?”
He bravely tried to finish as much as he could. But more papers came pouring in, all requests which brooked no delay. He cried: “I cannot make it tomorrow either. I cannot make for next week, either.”
The child went on crying, without let up. ”What shall I do?” His face told it all.
God looked weary, and bleary eyed too. I guess from reading so many requests, written in a scrawl made his eyes swim. He blinked; and stretched his hands. He would have liked to go for a walk in order to give his mind some ease. But the work on hand made it impossible. The number of letters came barging in an unbroken wave: like a herd of elephants holding to its rank and file. ‘Well, I must not let any request leave unanswered.’ God sighed and went on with his tasks.
The cry went on.
He merely took eyes from his reading and said sadly,”I cannot make it for ages. What shall I do?”
The child slightly turned up the volume.”Oho! hold your horses,”Cried God. He looked left and right and he threw up his hands.“I cannot be everywhere. But his cries harrow me!”
He sent for Mother and said,”Here is the name and the address.”
“Baby Martinez,” she read and queried,” So the child wants a mother. Well you want me to be a nanny?”
“Be kind and think of this much harried Father.” He told in a few words what was expected of her, ”Be mother to a child in need.”
Thus a mother came in a trice to the earth. “Where is that child which God gave me?”
But she heard something stirring and moaning low. She looked in the direction from which the cry came. This was not the cry of the child. Because God had told the child lived in such and such address in that city over there, by a bridge.
She had his address and she knew she had to move on.
In the night under a starry sky stood a farm, which was broken down. And a barn stood still smouldering. She heard the cry just as she heard earlier. It came low and so continuous as if some one was in pain. Such pain that cannot go by itself. She felt something strange within. “God made me a mother to some child in pain.” She would have liked to leave but that cry touched her heart. “I shall be quick about this. Then I will be gone on my errand.”
In that darkness she looked to her left and and to her right. The farm was completely bare. The cry did not come from the farm she decided. That cry went on. A plaintive cry it was and it came from the barn. She knew it. Quickly she went into the barn or whatever remained of it. A cow lay in shadows. In that cloudless night she saw her head and two large moist eyes. A few stars winked here and there. She knew from one look what hurt her. She bent down and checked her. “Yes she was giving birth to a calf and something stopped her.” She hesitated, ”Should I dirty myself in lending my hand to this beast? It is for her owner to worry about.” She remembered the burnt-down farm. She  knew the cow would die if she did not relieve her distress. Also her calf. ‘What shall I do?’ She felt sorry. She remembered what she was there on the earth for. “I must attend to the child who cries still.” Yet she pitied that helpless calf . ‘I shall not waste time, no more than what is necessary.’
Down to her knees she went and in the cover of darkness she did all she could. It was sufficient. She pulled out the calf which was wet and slithery. Instantly the calf was being attended to by its mother. Nothing else mattered anymore. With grunts of pleasure the beast licked her calf dry. ‘Thlaak! Thlaak!” the cow went on with her fat tongue; and oh how she swatted with her tail every insect which came closer.
The mother silenly removed herself from there.
To her dismay she had arrived on the outskirts of El Kobe a town that was in turmoil. Soldiers had just combed the place thoroughly and took away all the able bodied men. Women were crying desolate and old hags huddled here and there like zombies. One woman seeing the stranger spat out,” Have you come down dressed to the nines for your fun? See our misery and be entertained.”
The mother felt it like stab to her vitals. She went to her disregarding her spite and indiscreet words.” Consider me as a sister. I am also a woman like you.”
“ Oh yes. But what do you know of loss or sorrow?” She wept. The mother quietly put her arms around her,” Shh.I shall try to make you feel good.” She sat there while the rest of the women slowly approached her and they knew she for all her well- fed looks and strange clothes was one of them. She heard them all and did her best to raise their spirits.  “I know a war eats up her own children and leaves a rotten trail of misery.”
Suddenly she stood up to say,” It struck me. I am seeking a child in particular. I must be on the way.” But it was easier said than done. There were many such heartbreaking moments as she had witnessed in El Kobe. Much as she tried to bring peace and quietness to those in distress she could not. Time, cruel time was very strident in dinning into her ears,” Baby Martinez! Get up and go to him.” At last she wrenched herself free and walked away.
She could see the bridge ahead in shadows. She hastened to the address, which God had given her.  But before she crossed the river that separated the new from the old part of the town, some soldiers came and arrested her.
“We have suspicions, woman.” They took her to the camp and before their commanding officer and said what the charge was. The captain in his splendid uniform heard what his men had to say. He nodded gravely and dismissed them. He turned to her and said,”You are a spy who has come in the stealth of night. You were sent by our enemies. Are you not?”
The mother took out a piece of paper on which stood the name of the child and his address. The captain jumped with a wild gleam in his eyes.
“ Rafael Martinez!” he cried with passion,” This very man we are after. We have been promised millions for catching him dead or alive!“ He laughed,”10 millions pesos in bounty!”
Suddenly he slumped with his laughter curdled; and blood was all over the floor. At that moment a horde of warriors stole into the courtyard through smoke and cries. They came where the captain lay dead. They came where only a woman stood in the middle surrounded by dead men. Their leader a wild desperado who saved her asked what on earth she was being held there for. She said all that she knew. While his soldiers cleared the dead bodies the chief looked at the slip of paper and said in a wonder.”I am Martinez. The address is also correct!”
“O son, I am sent. Don’t ask me from where. I am here.”
But the wild man in fatigues stained with blood and grime shrank from her reach. Having got over his shock he said with short laugh,” I cried my heart out, once, for a mother.”
“How strange?”he sighed.
The End

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Wild Strawberries-1957

Bergman’s ‘Smultronstället is a masterpiece. Out of a simple story of a crotchety man who makes a journey from Stockholm to Lund to receive an honorary degree for his fifty years stint as a doctor, the Swedish master has woven a universal saga of you and me. The life of a common man is etched in heroic proportions. Dr. Isaak Borg is somewhat like Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman who had all his useful life glossed over his insubstantial self in a cleverly orchestrated ritual of living. Beneath his urbane exterior there beats a cold heart that has wrought enough havoc with all who are closest to him. Like Miller’s salesman, his advanced years all of a sudden rip apart the carefully erected façade and also his defenses. The film is an interior ‘odyssey’ where his fears, frustrations and self-pity take shapes as any character from the Homer’s saga.

The world lost one of its greatest film directors last year. In his “celluloid poems” (as Woody Allen calls them), film genius Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) examined the human condition in all of its bleakness, despair, humor, and hope, expanding our sense of what it means to be human. He favored intuition over intellect, and his films typically pondered the deepest concerns of humanity: mortality, loneliness, faith, and love. Considered one of his greatest films (and one of my personal favorites), Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället) brilliantly examines the life of an aging, 78-year-old medical doctor, Professor Isaak Borg (Victor Sjöström). This film weaves several strands of lives blighted unconsciously by this protagonist. While traveling with his lovely daughter-in-law, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), from Stockholm to Lund they pass time in exchanges and he is rather surprised that she doesn’t particularly care for him or for Evald, his son. As the film progresses we see on what precipitous point their marriage stands and part of the blame lies with him. His inner journey is a journey of self-discovery; his daydreams, nightmares, and fellow travelers force him to face his past, examine his faults, and accept the inevitability of his impending death. Bergman’s film explores the difficulties of marriage and human relationships as shown in that of his own and on a rebound that of Evald and Marianne. His own inability to communicate is juxtaposed with the couple (whom he gives a ride). Their verbal thrusts and innuendos remind one of Albee’ Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf. Savor life’s wild strawberries while you can. Success is fleeting, but regrets and disappointments will follow us for the rest of our lives. The point is brought home in the dream sequence where he is judged as incompetent and the interlocutor informs loneliness as the punishment for his callousness. Because Borg’s inner journey is universal, Bergman’s film will always remain relevant and emotionally powerful.

The film won 11  awards including the Golden Globe.

Criterion’s edition includes a pristine digital transfer of Bergman’s bittersweet masterpiece, a 90-minute documentary by filmmaker and author Jörn Donner, improved English subtitle translation, and a commentary by film scholar Peter Cowie.

(ack: G. Merritt)

Quote:

‘Bergman, …uses flashbacks and bright, lyrical storytelling to capture the full arc of one man’s life: the successes that seem fleeting, the disappointments that linger in the memory, the regrets that never seem to let go. In some ways, it can be seen as a forerunner of Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry, except that Bergman’s sense of irony is always more profound’.( Marshall Fine)

Other films of Bergman: Smiles of a Summer Night, Persona, Scenes from a Marriage, The Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence

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