Early Bergman, and from the onset it is clear an artist is at work. The first conversation piece, with all 5 waiting women in the same room, is a long shot approaching 4 minutes, with various of the women talking. There are also already some typical Bergman postures, with one woman talking intensely and the one next to her staring vapidly past her downwards, seemingly lost in her own inner world. All that in well and good, but as soon as I heard the first monotonous monologue from the mother, her eyes turning to heaven, speaking of how she can not reach out to her husband", not even to scratch his eyes out, my Bergman-radar immediately hit the red zone. And surely enough, we are in for group therapy all the way, as each woman tells of one significant episode from their lives with their husbands. But it is a very elegant movie, and along the way you become quite sympathetic, even though all the stories describe infidelity and frigid bourgeous lives. My eye was caught by Eva Dahlbeck, who I also recently saw in Sommarnöje sökes. Here, at 32, she is sizzlingly hot. Overall it is a movie not to be missed by Bergman lovers, if mainly for historical reasons. His next movie was Monika, so this one can be said to commence his golden period. For the trivia-consumers: IMDb informs that Eva Dahlbeck has recently filed for divorce, after, ahem, 67 years of marriage. You go, girl!
Review of Secrets of Women
