It Rains on Our Love

This feature, like Bergman's first' is a relatively simple melodrama. Both follow rather simple narratives about characters going through simple struggles. And yet, where his first one left me unmoved, this second film is at the very least Charming with also thought provoking commentary on Swedish society at best.

Like Birger Malmsten's character David says in the first minutes of the film, "Damn Society", or something along those lines at least. Time and time again our two lovers are confronted with unfortune from society and everytime they pull through and come out stronger, ending in a finally in court that felt satisfying to say the least.

While nothing too special in terms of Cinematography or anything like that I think this is a more than fine film and a good start for Bergman. It's funny to see these light hearted early films of him that feel almost out of place when compared to his dramatic works we now know would later follow. I guess the Swedish audiences at that time were more interested in light hearted films about love than deep ones about human nature and death and such.

3/5 Stars.

This early Ingmar Bergman film already bears the marks of a great director with a striking sense of images - the cinematography is already here remarkable, at times touching on expressionism. It is a well written idyllic story of a young couple in trouble, he being just released from prison after a year for theft, and she being pregnant by an unknown man. They break into a small empty summer house, in which the owner of it takes them red-handed - and decides to rent it to them, so they start a life there under difficult and very basic circumstances. That's the set-up of the play, which turns in various different directions as the young couple struggle on in a cold October weather with lots of raining, and they have to endure some harassment from authorities, one of them being a very self-complacent and sanctimonious priest - a typical Bergman character, who always loved hanging out priests of double standards. It's an enjoyable film with a very appropriate score by Erland von Koch, combining dark comedy with social criticism in a perfect frame of idyllic environment - an ideal film of coziness.

Bergman is still making his way here, with a story that revolves around the struggle to be accepted by society if one has a stain on one's past. A man meets a woman who's missed her train, and they have a fling which leads to deeper feelings. The trouble is, he's fresh out of prison, she's pregnant from some other one-night stand, and they're both broke. The fact that the man has trouble accepting the woman's pregnancy initially was an interesting touch, since he too is judged for mistakes he's made, and it's also refreshing to see the open treatment of premarital sex.

The couple seem to get a break from a guy who lets them stay in his cottage and sets him up with a job, but between those who can't accept that an ex-con can go straight or the couple living together "in sin," and those who prey on their simplicity, they have a tough go of it. The film is a condemnation of narrow-mindedness which I liked, but it gets a little heavy-handed in a courtroom scene towards the end, and in the film's final moments, as sweet as the gesture was. The leading couple (Barbro Kollberg and Birger Malmsten) make a good-looking pair and I appreciated what the film was going for, but guard your expectations.

'It rains on our love" (1946) is an early film by Ingmar Bergman. Bergman was a director who had to learn his trade so the film is worth watching , but it isn't great.

The film is about two vagabonds, a man (David played by Birger Malmsten, a regular actor in Bergman films up till 1950) and a women (Maggi played by Barbro Kollberg), that are treated roughly by society. Of course (representatives of) society do see that differently. In their view the vagabonds fail to adapt to society's norms.

Films about vagabonds always remind me of "the little tramp", the ultimate vagabond, most certainly if a stray dog is involved, as is the case in "It rains on our love". See also "A dog's life" (1918, Charlie Chaplin). Chaplin however was much more competent in finding the right mix between comedy and sentimentality than the young Bergman, and also than the mature Bergman I guess, because Bergman quit making films in this genre after a while.

The film ends with a courtroom scene, and this is one of the most memorable scenes of the film. In the beginning the two vagabonds are on trial, but when their lawyer starts his defence the roles are quickly reversed and it almost seems that society is on trial.

This lawyer (Gosta Cederlund) is a remarkable appearance in "It rains on our love". He starts as a sort of narrator / guradian angel and all of a sudden becomes a character. Most unusual!

When Maggi (Barbro Kollberg) misses her train, she meets David (Birger Malmsten) that invites her to go to a Salvation Army hotel to share a room with him. They have one night stand and on the next morning, David tells her that she had spent one year in prison. They decide to wander together and during the rainy night, Maggi twists her ankle and David breaks in a cottage to protect her from the rain and cold. Out of the blue, the owner Per Håkansson (Ludde Gentzel) appears in the cabin and offers to rent it to the couple. David finds a job with the local gardener Andersson (Douglas Håge) despite the opposition of his despicable wife and befriends two peddlers and a neighbor. When Håkansson offers to sell the cottage to David, Maggi discloses that she is pregnant of a stranger she had met a couple of months before she knew David. But sooner the naive couple leans the bureaucracy of his country and the selfish human nature of his neighbors.

The romance "Det regnar på vår kärlek" is the second film of Ingmar Bergman about a young couple with a questionable past that decides to move together to build a new life and finds how the selfish human nature of their fellowships and the behavior of the authorities of their country. The story recalled me Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" of the same year, with the defense attorney acting like an angel in the lives of Maggi and David when there was no more hope to the couple. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Chove Sobre Nosso Amor" ("It Rains over Our Love")