Abend der Gaukler (1953)

Abend der Gaukler: Directed by Ingmar Bergman. With Åke Grönberg, Harriet Andersson, Hasse Ekman, Anders Ek. The complicated relationships between a circus ringmaster, his estranged wife and his lover.

“Thanks to Criterion Collection for making a sparkling fresh print of this film available on DVD. Sven Nykvistu0026#39;s cinematography is seen as excellent as ever, especially those brooding cloudy skies. The story moves along nicely, and Bergmanu0026#39;s women are clearly their own people (most of the time anyway). The tawdry lives of circus folk is a film cliché, but the characters do live and breathe in this movie rather more completely than we could have hoped. Special attention should be paid to the music of Swedish Modernist composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl. Those punching dissonant chords at the beginning of the film are not unlike much of his music for the outer-space opera he wrote, u0026quot;Aniara.u0026quot; There is a recording of that work, but itu0026#39;s hard to come by. But you can try to find his Symphony No. 3, u0026quot;Facetteru0026quot;, and youu0026#39;ll be delighted by how it grows on you. Nevertheless, Bergman pretty much left Blomdahl behind in his subsequent work, and you can see why: Much of it doesnu0026#39;t really fit, which is something you can say about a lot of famous composers who try their hand at film music.”