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Rating: Brink of Life is a 1958 film by Ingmar Bergman, one of the greatest film directors of all time and place.
Three women, a hospital, gynecology department. Three pregnant women, three destinies, and three different perspectives.
When I think of Hollywood cinema that still today relegates women, with few exceptions, to a supporting role, women as objects who speak and “act” with their bodies from Marilyn Monroe onwards, and I think of this Bergman film that came out more than 60 years ago, I am astounded.
A realistic, simple but profound film. Concrete in its dynamics, in its dialogues, in the characterization of the characters. Entirely shot indoors (the hospital). Centered shots, mostly static, few frills or flourishes, a theatrical film.
A damn well-balanced film, not a smudge, nothing more, nothing less than what you see but you see life. Life with a capital L, life that is yet to be born, the child. And the couple that truly loves each other, that the nurse has never seen in her life a woman so happy to bring a child into the world, her first child… and the couple that loves each other falsely and it's visible and she tells him and he says no no what are you thinking (formidable actors). And the single mother who becomes pregnant by a womanizer and therefore wants to have an abortion, she hates children and instead no, she doesn't hate them.
Happy ending? Surprise ending? Plot twist? None of that. Injustice? Not even. It's just life, they are just human events that could happen to anyone and that have happened and will happen again. That when it ends maybe someone says, but does it end just like this? Sure, idiot, everything is complete what the hell do you want, the tear-jerking music, her astonished look, or a little bird that perches on the edge behind the window and, lingering a little, resumes its flight?
It ends just like that, without music, without even warning you that it's about to end, without the final "cool" shot, it's complete, that's how it went.
To understand how great Bergman is, you just have to watch his films, you don't need to hype yourself up by saying I've seen PERSONA 15 timesEEE eeeeh but THE SEVENTH SEAALOOO… although WILD STRAWBERRIEEE… HOUR OF THE WOLF HOUR OF THE WOLF!
Well, maybe I prefer this Bergman here, look what I'm telling you, after all, it's always him and this film is so “perfect” (oh god what an obnoxious term) that you don't even realize what a film he made about three pregnant women in a hospital more than 60 years ago.
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