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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Allegory of Love, December 10, 1999
The details of this film pass with the gritty realism almost of a documentary. Indeed of several documentaries: first about the intricacies of an ordinary marriage, then about the abrupt interruption of war, finally a descent into brutality, some might say insanity. In all three regards, the movie presents a powerful, because intimate, representation of the human condition. Who cannot picture their own relationship with their spouse at the beginning? Who can watch the middle section without thinking of Bosnia, or of Kosovo? Fortunately, most of us have been spared the film's denouement (if denouement is the appropriate term here).It is from a structuralist perspective, however, that the film proves to be a truly remarkable work. It is clearly allegorical, and like all allegories it invites interpretation. It suggests many things, all conflictual: the struggle of art against political and social brutishness (the broken violin, the ruined hands, the smashing of a piano, etc.) It suggests the defeat of simplicity (with an overtone of 'simple piety') in the face of human complexity, and ultimately free will. Jan and Eva are not simple people, yet they attempt the simple life as an escape from war. The war - the human condition in extremis - catches up with them and takes them over through death, prostitution, revenge. The film's most poignant moment occurs as the aspiring mother, Eva, comes across a slaughtered infant, mourns the death of innocence, as it were. There are many other allegorical levels at which this film plays, all of them valid interpretations. Yet it is as an allegory of love that the film held greatest power for me. It's hardly an uplifting view of love, but then Bergman never shies from the harsher portrayals of humanity. The film is structured as a mirror turning upon itself. At the begining, Jan is weak, Eva acts. Jan has a dream, which reflects his inner turmoil and fear, Eva listens less than attentively as she tries to get them to meet an appointment with a ferry boat. When Jan does attempt to act (by fixing the radio, fixing the car, shooting a chicken) he fails miserably. She, on the other hand, strides out into a river to procure a fish from her neighbor, she cooks, she provides. By the end of the film, it is Jan who is acting, Eva who follows. Jan takes revenge, Jan kills for boots, Jan bribes his way onto a boat, Jan steers. The greater Jan's power to act, the weaker and more dependent Eva becomes. I am reminded of Sartre's reflections on human relationships (etres pour autrui) where intimacy is portrayed largely as a struggle between two beings for dominance. What is most powerful about Bergman's allegory here is the context in which this struggle takes place. Eva's hegemony is one driven by the urge to nurture, provide and give. Her great desire is to have a child, to give and nourish life, an urge which she admits is instinctual. In Bergman's perverted mirror, Jan is transformed into action by the destructive forces of war. He takes life. At the end, wantonly. Eva's hegemony ends in the symbol of the dead child. Jan's in the unforgettable image of the dead floating soldiers. Love, in Bergman's allegory then, becomes symbolically a struggle between life affirming forces and death. If the latter overcomes the former, neither prevails.
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