SUBJECTS

Childbirth -- Sweden -- Drama, Hospitals -- Maternity services -- Sweden -- Drama, Isaksson, Ulla, 1916- -- Film and video adaptations, Pregnant women -- Sweden -- Drama

Brink of Life

(Nära livet)

featuring

Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson,

Brink of Life pursues Bergman’s fascination with the inner lives of women to a maternity ward where three women await the blessed event with mixed attitudes—and fates. Only an unwed teenager who has tried to abort the dreaded newcomer finds herself heading toward a healthy delivery. The film won awards at Cannes not only for the director but for the actresses—Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, and Bibi Andersson—whose ensemble work is impressive. The acting holds the charge, and the camera knows it, in this film that is simple in focus, and more clinical than cynical. Not your basic Bergman.

Judy Bloch
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Ingmar Bergman
  • Ulla Isaksson
Based On
  • the short story by Isaksson

Cinematographer
  • Max Wilén
Language
  • Swedish
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 84 mins
Source
  • Janus Films
Permission
  • Folkets Hus och Parker
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View Brink of Life documents  

Ingmar Bergman's magic lantern: life as art in retrospect (program note), Hopkins Center of Dartmouth College, Ulrike Rainer, 1988

Nära livet (review), Monthly Film Bulletin, P.J.R., 1961

Brink of life (review), Filmfacts, Paul V. Beckley, 1959

Brink of life (review), Saturday Review, Hollis Alpert, 1959

Nara livet (review), Variety, Gene Moskowitz, 1958

Brink of life (distributor materials), Janus Films

Illuminating Ingmar Bergman (program note), Pacific Film Archive

Ingmar Bergman (program note)

Brink of life (synopsis), Noel Meadow

Film Quarterly comments on Bergman's Brink of LIfe (review)

Displaying 10 of 11 publicly available documents.


View all Brink of Life documentation on CineFiles.