1162 Three Films by Mai Zetterling

[swo17]

Three Films by Mai Zetterling



A fearlessly transgressive, long-overlooked pioneer of feminist cinema, Swedish actor turned director Mai Zetterling ruffled the feathers of the patriarchal establishment with a string of bracingly modern, sexually frank, and politically incendiary films focused on female agency and the turbulent state of twentieth-century Europe. Her peerless ability to render subjective psychological states with startling immediacy is on display in Loving Couples, Night Games, and The Girls—three provocative, taboo-shattering works from the 1960s featuring some of Swedish cinema's most iconic stars. With their audacious narrative structures that fuse reality and fantasy, their elaborate use of metaphor and symbolism, and their willingness to delve into the most fraught realms of human experience, these movies are models of adventurous, passionately engaged filmmaking.

Loving Couples



The title of Mai Zetterling's boldly iconoclastic debut feature—adapted from a cycle of seven novels by the provocative feminist writer Agnes von Krusenstjerna—drips with irony. In 1915, three pregnant women from varying social backgrounds (Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, and Gio Petré) enter a maternity ward. Cue a swirl of perspective-shifting flashbacks that, with searing psychological insight, illuminate the divergent yet interconnected experiences that brought them there—and that came to a head during one lavish, debauched Midsommar celebration. Wildly subversive in its treatment of sexuality, gender, class, religion, marriage, and motherhood, Loving Couples is as electrifying a first feature as any in cinema history, announcing the arrival of an uncompromising artist in pursuit of raw emotional truth.

Night Games



Outrageous and explosively controversial (the Venice Film Festival refused to screen it publicly, while John Waters has called it his favorite film), Mai Zetterling's second feature is a blazing psychosexual odyssey with heaving Freudian flourishes. On the eve of his marriage to his fiancée (Lena Brundin), Jan (Keve Hjelm) returns to his childhood home—a sprawling estate stuffed with antiques—where he relives his memories of his beautiful, decadent, mercurial mother (Ingrid Thulin) and finds himself forced to confront his unresolved Oedipal longings. Seamlessly interweaving past and present, carnivalesque camp and potent symbolism, Night Games functions as both a feverishly perverse family portrait and a serious statement on the tormented soul of a modern Europe reckoning with the demons of its past.

The Girls



Mai Zetterling's cinema reached new heights of exuberant experimentation and fierce political engagement with this pointed and playful touchstone of 1960s feminist cinema. As they tour Sweden in a theatrical production of Lysistrata, performing to often uncomprehending audiences, three women (national cinema icons Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, and Gunnel Lindblom) find their own lives and marriages mirrored in the complex, combative gender relations at the heart of Aristophanes's play. Onstage drama, offstage reality, and a torrent of surrealist fantasies and daydreams collide in The Girls, a slashing, sardonic reflection on the myriad challenges confronting women on their path to liberation, and on the struggles of the female artist fighting to make her voice heard over the patriarchal din.

THREE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 2K digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• New interview with author Alicia Malone
• Maybe I Really Am a Sorceress, a 1989 documentary on director Mai Zetterling, featuring interviews with Zetterling; her coscreenwriter, David Hughes; and actors Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson, and Gunnel Lindblom
• Lines from the Heart, a 1996 documentary reuniting The Girls actors Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, and Lindblom
• Interview with Zetterling from 1984 on Loving Couples and The Girls
• Swedish television footage from 1966, filmed on location during the production of Night Games and at the film's premiere
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: An essay by film scholar Mariah Larsson

[therewillbeblus]

Wow, a December release in the running for release of the year! Upgrades of three of Zetterling's strongest films from the Swedish R2 box- though I really hope Criterion doesn't stop there, since Doctor Glas and her curiously under-discussed final feature Amorosa are still on the table. My writeups of these three from elsewhere on the forum:

The Girls (Mai Zetterling, 1968)

What a lovely, bizarre experimental narrative on complex femininity. Zetterling beautifully implements a nouvelle vague style to convey the tribulations drawing even the most self-fulfilled women back into the world of men, as well as to formally express their loose playfulness which becomes a continual reminder of resiliency. The technical choices blur the line between dream, memory, imagination and reality, all of which hold equally significant weight, but the filmmaker also professes that these imposed burdens from the conjunction of the self and society can be traversed, alleviated, embraced, and assigned subjective value as part of the practice of female empowerment. For example, Bibi's hosts' internal monologues are an odd insert in giving them first-person narration. Are they her anxious projections or the reality of behavior interpreted from the outside? Either way she’s left simultaneously unaffected in continuing to chat away, greeting them with compassion, and being her authentic self - and yet she is also clearly poisoned with self-consciousness when they leave. This conflict delivers information of personal disharmony in minor bouts of private despair, and showcases the ability to assert the self in harmony by overcoming ennui, at the same time.

This duality extends to all three of the women, who are in cyclical fluxes of being inescapably drawn to and repelled by men, and have a complicated relationship with their own responses to this magnetism. Running away from a man helplessly in the snow, trying to flee a life tied to him, is juxtaposed with a joyous mattress shopping scene where they cannot help but spill their playful bedroom intimacy out into the public world, confidently without embarrassment. Who is who across these scenes is unimportant, as evidenced by the obscure editing, but the aura of contradictions evaporates into a universality that drives enigmatic emotional unity. The friction of their desires for connection with those for independent self-esteem, and the lack of clarity in processing these contrasting needs, is emphasized by the elliptical formalism to construct a narrative that is fluid in its internal logic but not a typically sensical display.

The tv interview the girls do, where they laugh at the contradictions they spew in trying to explain the play, is a summation of what this film is, and what their lives are- impossible to pin down, but sobering in both its truth of unavoidable malaise and the equal truth that one can escape into harmony with oneself far more than they think. Most of all this was incredibly fun, spirited, and tenderly atmospheric. I don’t know if I can definitively call this the best feminist film I’ve ever seen, but the self-reflexive nature, the exposition of foggy terrain that women traverse daily in being torn between their deeply-ingrained gender roles, biological drives, and will to be free of these constraints- as well as trying to decipher what “free” means, and if, or how, that definition can shift to exclude men without guilt- are all cause for its candidacy.

Though it’s the places this goes and where it ultimately leads us that seals the deal and is cause for celebration. We land in self-actualized rhapsody, and while still within the confines of society, Bibi’s final act bleeds the play’s independence into real life and allows the joke to become serious in part without being wholly one tone- much like the tv interview banter sets the stage for thematically. The action isn't sourced in specificity, but in the refusal to remain stuck in the murky waters of prolonged consideration, taking a tangible action and embracing it. Regardless of the pros and cons, the liberation is in the choice itself to trust the gut, divorced from the details of the act to follow. I loved this film, which deconstructs femininity void of any purpose of evaluation, instead as a necessary step to reconstruct the experience back into a stronger energy, and as proof of worthy emancipation, not for us as social observers but for the women themselves.

Loving Couples is an excellent depiction of the person-in-environment sociological model from female vantage points. Throughout the film, women escape their restricted positions -physically resigned to hospital beds and figuratively trapped in patriarchal decorum- temporarily through memory. It’s not a safe environment to publicly share past lovers or experience, to shove off an advance, or make a choice independently that society doesn’t affirm, but small gestures like grabbing a snack from a tray while stuck in that bed warrants a gleeful smile, and of course trips down memory lane.

The juxtaposition of interests between genders can be quite uncomfortable when we’re granted access to the feminine point of view. Men are set on sex as the women offer their bodies and attempt to converse over preferred topics to empty voids, but this isn't your typical tale of oppression as sublime weaves its way through these pockets of life shared between women and men- permitting the comfortable to exist alongside the uncomfortable. Perhaps the most interesting scene involves a flashback to a little girl dancing with an older man in an attic. It’s a beautiful scene, portrayed as such despite the obvious red flags, and when it does transition into alarm, that somehow doesn’t discount the magic of what came before. The female perspective here doesn’t rob women of their happiness even if it’s mixed in with rotten trauma and aggressive invalidation. The way the women assert their agency in the memories they cherry pick, within bubbles of flirtatious parties delivering playful jabs at male egos or willingly giving themselves over to romance, align with the men in their lives to form genuine loving exchanges, without divorcing their sexual intentions from one another completely. Contrasting these are brutal presentations of expectations thrust on these women, or examples of how quickly their rights can be revoked or dismissed.

The suggestion seems to be that there is (or was) a glimmer of hope in possibility of freedom and equality because such positive experiences have occurred. Though the fusion of all moods in this melting pot, positing liberations coexisting with imbalanced constraints, paints a complex portrait that holds views both cheerfully optimistic and gravely realistic, together.

Night Games is as twisted as people say, though it never bests the opening flashback, utterly raw and absurd in exhibition; the bird-call singing is as comical as the public display of pain is upsetting. That doesn’t mean the rest of the film is anything short of excellent, oscillating between dream and nightmare tonal energies, curbing any chance at catharsis, or so we think.

The Oedipal whirlpool of obsession and compulsion drives a stake in the confusing space men find themselves in when with women, specifically in that pointed direction, and the theme seems to be how we are always on the edge of a psychological collapse of executive functioning reverting back to our ids, as well as the self-preserving drive to have our ego validated. The reminders of this nebulous attraction between son and mother/aunt affects the present tranquility that’s been adopted by the protagonist over time with his current lover, and the alterations in behavior insinuate that suppression doesn’t work either and may actually be counterproductive. By not providing didacticism or outlet in the form of any potential answer to the malady, Zetterling opens up the interest to our buried fetishes and lays them bare, as truths without endpoints for healing. She radically doesn’t even claim that they need to be healed at all, regardless of how they interfere with present functioning. Maybe there’s something else to do with them altogether that we’re missing, lying in subjective experience.

When he asks his mother to tell him a story and she responds by asking if that’s what he really wants to believe in, suggesting that he could believe in her, the sensuality is literally overbearing, her body on top of him suffocating his attention away from all other significance. Is this an actual memory or metaphorical for the carnal obsessions that have blurred his peripheral vision to find meaning elsewhere- in stories or in life? This is another fragmented surreal entry for Zetterling that plays with memory and fantasy, and their effects on one’s present psychological state. It’s also perhaps the most audacious film I’ve seen from her yet, and commendable for never holding back the perversity that clouds the honest flooding of intrusive thoughts. There is a deeper theme of general dissatisfaction with one’s current position, a commentary that uses the mother’s continuous need to leave her dwellings for another experience, and the boy following suit, unable to accept his present circumstances. That drive for ‘more,’ into fantasy and away from gratitude or observed fulfillment, is detrimental to the man’s stability, and reminiscent of the discomfort that plagues Zetterling’s characters across her oeuvre. The aunt, on the other hand, seems to indicate solace from that 'grass is always greener' drive, emulating that burning passion can transform routine stagnancy into a euphoric dream.

The chaos that physically populates spaces toward the end is a wonderful projection of the mind’s needs coming back against the desolate banality of the spaces at the start. Our protagonist is caught between conflicting drives without a home- he finds safety in the fantasies of his mother and aunt’s worshipping attentions, but also unease spawned from their impenetrable essence. The magnetization towards a fugue dream state is fueled by preoccupation with self-gratified needs of pleasures and self-concept, just as it is from fear of the absence of such centralized focus on himself from others, that he craves addictively.

Zetterling’s choice to make the women enigmatic forces representing incomprehensible alien qualities from a male perspective, just as he is inescapably drawn to them, is a statement in itself about the nature of females in a patriarchal society that demands to categorize such unknowability as a strength, and the disconnect between sexes an acknowledged struggle. I wonder if this is in part her way of creating the isolating female experience as a poisonous gift for men, similar to Doctor Glas, or to expose the male existence as sterile and empty without the presence of women, highlighting their innate significance. It’s hard to make out what the ending means, but the man is comforted by his aunt’s presence, and it’s assumed that without her love, real or imagined, he would be numbed, lost, and unhappy- or to reframe it positively, with her presence, he is able to feel alive, found, and find meaning. I guess I think the film has a happy ending, even if I’m a bit perplexed about what I’ve just watched, but I also think there’s immense truth in subjective experience that can supersede objective meaning in merit, so what do I know.

[ryannichols7]

thank you TWBB - when I saw this announcement I thought of you, I know you've been pulling for Flickorna (we're bookending the year with two Nordic movies that I can't help but use their original titles for - this and Festen) to get a release, two more is even better. I'm personally thrilled we're getting a boxset out of nowhere, but I admit I would like to preview them first. thank you for your comprehensive writeups!

[knives]

For those who are Zetterling curious she’s already in the collection with a fun short in Visions of Eight from the Olympics boxset.

[swo17]

She also acts in Torment in the Bergman Eclipse set

[domino harvey]

The Girls is a masterpiece, glad it’s coming to Blu!

[Cipater]

Happy to see a non-Bergman Swede represented! I have yet to see Night Games, and unfortunately missed it when the cinematheque screened it just last month, and I didn't really connect with Loving Couples when I saw it two years ago (and as is often times the case, I've forgotten why). It's been fascinating to see the re-evaluation and ensuing canonization of Zetterling's work in Sweden over the past decade-or-so. It wouldn't at all surprise me if Criterion's release will propel The Girls into all-time classic status within the young Letterboxd crowd. It's mandatory screening in almost any introductory cinema studies course here, and seemingly always screens to enthusiastic response. There was a period maybe four or five years ago when almost every single art-house theater in the country would screen it once per year. I can't think of any other '60s film that's played so regularly here, let alone a Swedish one.

That being said, I'm not at all a fan of The Girls. Like most people living in the 21st century, I agree with its politics, but… need they be conveyed so bluntly and loudly? At the risk of sounding like the privileged male critics that dismissed the film at the time of its released — the critics that modern-day professors now scoff at whenever they present the film — I think it's obnoxious and didactic, lacking in subtlety and, save for some strong architectural cinematography, finesse. (I also find its portrayal of the inhabitants of Kiruna very elitist and suburban-centric. If the film was more nuanced in its politics elsewhere, I might interpret it differently — a questioning of the protagonists' know-it-all attitude — but as it stands it seems emblematic of the film's own ditto.) Nowadays it's nigh impossible to criticize the film: it's grown untouchable and holy in ways no Bergman, Troell or Widerberg has. As you can probably tell, that irks me.

[mteller]

My thoughts exactly on The Girls. Really really ham-fisted. I didn't care much for Loving Couples either, although it is considerably less obnoxious. I will always be happy when a female director gets represented, but Zetterling is just not for me.

[therewillbeblus]

I’d still suggest checking out Night Games and Doctor Glas, which are far more eccentric and enigmatic works. You may be surprised.

That said, whatever didacticism exists here is complemented and even waxed over by its liberated style, which may itself be reflexively didactic in an implicit rather than explicit sense, but it’s so powerfully exuberant that I can’t imagine looking past these tonal signifiers to see bothersome smudges. The scene where the three principals dance to a record is one of the most joyous moments in cinema

[criterionsnob]

Beaver

[barryconvex]

What an amazing debut feature Loving Couples is. This is the film that should be on the top of the list when feminist cinema is being discussed. Knowing, wise, cutting, acerbic, funny, absurd and sad and made by someone whose knowledge of visual composition and camera placement would suggest years of trial and error finally reaching fruition in a latter career assemblage of life experience not a rookie with a couple shorts under her belt. Of course she's working with a genius for a DP but Nyquist doesn't walk off with the movie. It may have his stamp on it but the flavor, the guts, all the finesse in all those brilliant flashbacks, the credit goes to Zetterling. And she needed every ounce of that self assuredness for this ridiculously weighty subject that is basically a thesis on European femininity circa the mid 1960s. It's nearly impossible to get this sort of thing right but Zetterling really nails it down and does so with a lightness of touch that is perhaps her most impressive credential.
Three women from different classes reflect on their early sex lives while waiting to give birth in a hospital in Stockholm around the time of World War I. Without going into any specific storylines what emerges is a remembrance of a litany of mistreatment at the hands of various suitors, lovers, would be husbands and homosexual partners which is all easily enough foreseen and while it feels autobiographical to a point it's Zetterling's ability that carries the film. It could've been a bitter screed but through all the wrongs these women have to endure the ownership of their sexuality is never in doubt. They understand it's value as well as the rules of the game and are able to separate it from their overall senses of self worth. It's an aspect of their lives the same way impending motherhood is but in their core beings there's a wisdom and a profound sense of purpose that gives their lives meaning. The actors made me feel all this down to the marrow and all are great but Harriet Andersson, whose career I'm not overly familiar with - I don't think I've seen her outside of Bergman's films - is so truly stellar in this that I have a sudden urge to track down everything she's been in I can get my hands on. Flashback has rarely been used to better effect, the daunting number of locations-several outdoors-is handled with seeming ease and the epic midsummer night party that closes the film would've been difficult for any director to pull off. This is the best blind buy I've made in god knows how long..

[domino harvey]

That being said, I'm not at all a fan of The Girls. Like most people living in the 21st century, I agree with its politics, but… need they be conveyed so bluntly and loudly? At the risk of sounding like the privileged male critics that dismissed the film at the time of its released — the critics that modern-day professors now scoff at whenever they present the film — I think it's obnoxious and didactic, lacking in subtlety and, save for some strong architectural cinematography, finesse.

I am not eager to revisit the Girls, because based on my response to the other two films in this set, I may have been way, way off when I loved that one in college. Frankly, Loving Couples and Night Games are two of the worst films I've seen in recent memory. The above quoted response could be copied in full to Loving Couples, which is an exhaustive and exhausting catalog of misery-as-feminism. Every single ill that can befall a woman of course rears its head here, one after the other, and perhaps the only surprising thing in the film is that it took forty minutes before the pedophile showed up to entice a child with sweets. I don't know why Zetterling decided to retread ground well-trodden by Bergman in Brink of Life via the framing device, but this is a film that shows how truly good Bergman was and how hard it is to be him, because this is just two hours of the most embarrassing "Notice me" shit ever. Night Games is slightly better, in the way scoring a 25 out of 100 is better than a 12, but this is a movie that goes too far for far, far too little and earned its notorious reputation. Criterion's recent turns towards political correctness are even more of a joke considering they had no problem releasing this film, and I wouldn't even care if I believed it was the work of anything but a tired provocateur who liked Fellini's grotesqueries and Antonioni's ennui without having any sense of what made their films work. I think I may keep my fond memories of the Girls (which, even in my positive memory, also leans heavily on imitation of another director, Godard) without rewatching, because I don't know if I could handle realizing that it's just as bad as these movies

[furbicide]

On Night Games, it always seemed a bit weird to me how Shirley Temple has been painted as some kind of Anita Bryant / Mary Whitehouse-like conservative villain for quitting the San Francisco Film Festival jury in protest at this film. Maybe she had a broader pro-censorship orientation that I'm unaware of ... but I have to say that my first thought upon seeing the film was that it may well have been her own awful experiences as a child actor, and perhaps a sense of protectiveness for other child actors derived from that, that were the bigger factor in her protest. And if so, then her reaction is pretty understandable at worst.