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| This American poster does its best to sell Ingmar Bergman's hopeless All These Women, - but might have added tantalizing colors to certify that this actually is a color film |
A pretentious critic is writing a biography about a cellist master and goes to his large home to conduct an interview with him. This proves difficult, and so instead the critic interviews the many women in the master's life for insights.
What is the meaning of this piece of crap?!? - None? - And is that the meaning?
That was my main thought upon watching All These Women, the 26th theatrical feature by Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (Brink of Life/Nära Livet (1958)).
The film is meant as a satire based on Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), the great semi-autobiographical B/W drama about Fellini's life, filmmaking and relationships with women. Because of Bergman's usually heavily serious films one naturally goes looking for meaning, even when he makes a super-light, possibly pointless escapade as this seems to be.
The film is a strange mix of the plot's central cellist master being missing, (and whose absence seems to have some symbolic import, but the film is too poor to invite real interpretation in this or any other direction), and awful, unfunny shenanigans that are accompanied by happy jazz.
Jarl Kulle (Miss and Mrs. Sweden (1969)) as the protagonist critic snob earns the film's sole heart for his hardly understandable but physically impressive performance here. All These Women is perhaps the biggest turkey in Bergman's body of work. He co-wrote it with Erland Josephson (Faithless/Trolösa(2000)).
Related posts:
Ingmar Bergman: Fanny and Alexander/Fanny och Alexander (1982) - Bergman's treasured mammoth drama farewell
The Magician/Ansiktet (1958) or, Fool the Townfolk
Watch a video that shows pictures of Bergman and posters from his filmography here
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (but likely a huge flop)
[All These Women was released 15 June (Sweden) and runs 80 minutes. Bergman admired Fellini, and the film was his first in color as well as the most expensive for the director so far. It was Bergman's second straight comedy after Smiles of a Summer Night (1955). Shooting took place in Sweden, including in Stockholm. The film reportedly flopped both in Sweden and internationally, although the French reportedly took a liking to it. It seems that it was only released in just over a handful of countries. Bergman responded that he had made it in "hatred and disdain" as a way of attacking critics and puffed-up artists. He returned with the TV miniseries Don Juan (1965) and theatrically with Persona (1966). 1,386 IMDb-users have given All These Women a 5.7/10 average rating.]
What do you think of All These Women?
