On
April 30th, Walpurgis Night, Swedes gather in restaurants and around
bonfires to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Johan Borg
(Lars Hanson), who yearns to have
children, has planned a restaurant dinner with his wife Clary (Karin Kavli), hoping to awaken her
maternal instincts. But Clary, who is secretly pregnant, has no interest in
giving up her life of fun and freedom, and has already arranged for an illegal
abortion because
her gynecologist has refused to perform the operation.
Meanwhile,
Lena Bergström, (Ingrid Bergman) who
is Borg’s secretary and is secretly in love with him, is quitting her job out
of romantic frustration. Since Clary refuses to meet Borg for dinner, he
invites Lena, and the two are photographed together in the restaurant. And when
a news photographer shows the picture to Frederik Bergström (Victor Sjöström), newspaper editor and
Lena’s over-protective father, he assumes the two are having an affair. Later,
when the elder Bergström hears that the police have raided an abortionist’s
office and an unknown woman had had an abortion that very day, he assumes it
must be his daughter Lena.
While
Clary is not caught in the police raid, evidence incriminating her is left in
the abortionist’s office. What follows is an attempt to blackmail Clary and
Johan over the evidence. In the confrontation, the blackmailer threatens Johan
with a pistol, there is a fight, and Clary shoots and kills the man. Johan and
Clary escape undetected, but their marriage is clearly over. Clary leaves
Sweden for the European continent and Johan joins the French Foreign Legion in
North Africa. Later he regrets his decision, escapes from the Legion and
returns to Sweden. He goes to the police to confess to the murder and discovers
that Clary had recently committed suicide, leaving a letter confessing to the
murder, thus exonerating Johan who is now free to renew his relationship with
Lena. As the film ends, Johan and Lena are happily married and have a baby.
At
the time this film was made, the birth rate in Sweden was falling, so the issue
of abortion, whether legal or illegal was a controversial one. One of the
solutions presented in the film was that loving, harmonious marriage produces
happy, healthy offspring. The film’s ending, featuring a smiling Lena holding
her baby and greeting Johan as he arrives home from work, is certainly
consistent with that view.
In
Walpurgis Night, Ingrid Bergman plays
a young woman who falls in love with a married man. A year later, in Intermezzo (1936), she plays Anita
Hoffman, a young pianist, who falls in love with a married, world-renown
violinist. And six years later, in Casablanca (1942) she plays Ilsa Lund, a
married woman who falls in love with Humphrey Bogart’s character in pre-WW II
Paris. In these, and other films, Bergman plays women of morally questionable
character, however her natural beauty and innocence lifts up the tone of the
films and makes us believe in her characters.
Labels:
drama, Ingrid Bergman, romance
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