Music in the Dark

The conventional storyline relates the developing relationship between Bengt (Birger Malmsten), a young musician blinded in an accident during his military service, and Ingrid (Mai Zetterling), a lower-class servant girl in the home of Bengt’s parents. Blindness is developed into a full-blown psychological study and metaphor for youthful angst. The feverish dream sequence after the initial accident is particularly vivid and striking, especially given the cinematic constraints inherent in depicting a blind person’s subjective experience. Ingmar Bergman’s restless early experimentation with different styles here includes the classic Alfred Hitchcock conceit of filming himself in cameo; look for a young Bergman as a passenger on the train at the end of the film.