Barco a la India

The baggage the youthful Ingmar Bergman was carrying about his parent's generation finds vivid expression in this, his third feature, from his early "neo-realist" phase, which combines an extremely melodramatic plot about a hunch-backed young man (Birger Malmsten) struggling with the baleful influence of his macho, bullying father (Holger Löwenadler), set against an arresting backdrop of documentary-style footage of life among working folk. The noisy musical score by Erland von Koch marks it out as a very early Bergman.

All the Bergman complexes are already here: the dysfunctional family, the tyrannical father, the struggling sex disturbances, the human decadence, the claustrophobia, the inferiority complex, it's all here bundled up in a rotten ship trying to salvage a wreck, with a few able seamen but a captain that constantly ruins everything, it's all sordid and dreadful, even the dialog is constantly strained, the emotional outbursts keep on rolling, but the whole thing is wonderfully filmed with Bergman's famous and unique sense of imagery. A failure of a captain has a hunchback for a son, whom he keeps as a slave more or less, he wants to become a seaman, but the father keeps him hard at work with dirty things, and so there is a constant conflict brewing up. The captain wants to go away and leave everything, wife and son and crew and ship, to escape with a variety girl, but she falls in love with the son, while the captain is going blind. What a mess! It's the son that ultimately goes away, but comes back after seven years to find the wrecks of his previous life and the girl, whom he imagines has been waiting for him for seven years, as he has been dreaming of her for seven years, but that romantic construction is not quite convincing. The assets of the film are the splendid photography and imagery, and a wonderful score by Erland von Koch.

But it's not one of his best. The characterizations of the film's protagonists are inconsistent from scene to scene and some of them leave a viewer with many unanswered questions (like the mother's motivations.) Beyond that, the cinematography is pretty dowdy, particularly the exterior footage.

Still, it has elements that Bergman fans will recognize from his more famous films, and it contains sequences of despair and anguish that can haunt a viewer days later. Birger Malmsten, who plays the lead character Johannes and who will be seen in several later Bergman films, is immensely likable and compelling as the hunchback son who finally stands up to his despotic father. While many of the early Bergman films are uninteresting at almost every level ("Port of Call," for instance) this one is well worth a look for the hard core Bergmaniac, if you can find it.

Was only introduced to Ingmar Bergman seven years ago and very quickly he landed on my list of best and most influential directors. He did have occasional disappointments here and there (a vast majority of directors did/do), such as 'All Those Women' and 'The Serpent's Egg'. But he was great once he found his style, and quite a lot of his films are masterpieces such as 'The Seventh Seal', 'Fanny and Alexander', 'Wild Strawberries', 'Cries and Whispers', 'Persona' and 'The Virgin Spring'.

His third film 'A Ship to India' as director, following on from 'Crisis' and 'It Rains on Our Love', is a long way from being one of the master's best. Then again this was very early on in his career and when he was still finding his style properly. For such early Bergman however, 'A Ship to India' is a very interesting film and one can see signs of his distinctive style and themes already, it is also a not bad at all one. Actually thought it was quite well done on the whole.

As always for a Bergman film, there is some very nice photography (though this aspect has certainly been done better and more inspired in later Bergman films). Likewise with good use of very atmospheric locations. Bergman's direction became more refined and instinctive later on, then again it is early days, but one can definitely see a lot of promise here. The script s thoughtful, having the tension and emotion necessary.

The story is unmistakable Bergman in terms of themes and the tensions between the characters are believable. Emotionally it didn't feel cold. The acting is very strong from a chillingly cruel Holger Lowenadler and Birger Malmsten portrays a character worth relating to.

For all those good things, the uneven character writing also works against 'A Ship to India'. It is agreed that motivations are hard to buy, due to them being introduced suddenly without much warning and contradicting anything sad before. There were things crying out for explanation left hanging in the air.

On the most part the photography is fine but parts are a bit on the drab side. Some of the intensity wavers later on, with a few dreary moments.

Summarising, interesting and well done but Bergman is not at his best here. 7/10

Two men on a ship are fighting for the affections of a woman. In 1962 Roman Polanski had a breakthrough with this in the film "Knife in the water". In 1947 however Bergman was still learning and the quality of "A ship bound for India" in no way justified a breakthrough.

In "A ship bound for India" the two men are father and son, and by Bergman this signals an autobiographical element, the more so when the father is very authoritarian. The son resists the authority of his father and the woman "only" is a catalyst of this resistance. "Only" is however put a little too mildly because the woman gives the boy the needed self confidence to change his silent resistance into explicit resistance.

The film has some weak points. In the first place the father is too much the bad guy and the son too mucht the good guy. Secondly the father is authoritarian in a fysical way, in other words he is violent. I think the film would have been more interesting had the father been authoritarian in a spiritual way and the fight of the son was not to become as strong as his father but to develop his own personality.

In one scene Bergman shows his potential as the great director he would become. The diving scene, working magnificently with shadwos, is pure expressionism.