Brink of Life (1958)

Not rated, but this is a pretty bleak movie considering that it is about expecting mothers.  A lot of the movie generally floats around either miscarriages, abuse, and abortions.  Even when the characters aren't talking about such things, that is always somewhat part of the color of the film itself.  There are neglectful husbands and parents who often are cruel to the women in the film.  There is some nudity, but it is all in the context of breastfeeding.  There aren't that many men in the film to witness affairs, so the closest thing we get are discussing relationships that happen outside of wedlock. 

DIRECTOR:  Ingmar Bergman

Watching this movie in the midst of Oscar season is just an exercise in stress.  I started this movie because I knew that I would be gone for the weekend and I didn't want to waste a rental because you only get 48 hours to watch a movie once you started it.  So I watched something I owned and now I have to shotgun this blog so I can write about The Secret Agent.  My life is difficult and it is of my own doing.

Do you understand how nice I'm going to be about this movie because there isn't an active affair happening in the film?  Ingmar Bergman has broken me because I simply expect that characters are just going to talk about unfaithful spouses nonstop.  The funny thing is that I just wrote about Hamnet being described by critics as "grief porn", a term I don't care for because it seems vulgar.   Hamnet is not grief porn.  This movie and a lot of the Bergman movies themselves are grief porn.  We have five children and we're expecting our sixth.  Maybe this movie hit harder in the grief button because pregnancy has colored so much of our marriage.  As part of that, miscarriage has also been an ever-present visitor in our marriage.  Between my wife having her fair share of miscarriages, there's always the fear, despite things being healthy right now, that something absolutely tragic is going to happen soon.  I don't think of myself as a pessimist, but I just know how bleak things get when you expect new life and something takes that away.

I'm really interested in Bergman's politics with this one.  I don't think that I would care for Ingmar Bergman in real life.  He seemed to use women pretty selfishly.  I view his male characters as extensions of his own personal demons.  Again, a lot of this is my headcanon, so I apologize if I am way off the mark.  I look at this movie through two very different lights.  In one version, Brink of Life might be an example of a male director trying to be an ally to women.  In the most optimistic read of this film, Bergman is trying to step back from his own male ego and allow women to tell their stories.  While it would have been nice to have a woman write and direct this film I also have to take into account that 1958 coupled with Bergman's burgeoning celebrity would have made Brink of Life impossible to make by anyone else.  If it is that --which I really hope that it is --then this is a story about Bergman growing.  He's been critical of men in the past, mostly criticizing himself.  But in this, he's not allowing the men to be the focal point of the narrative.  It's not the first time that he's told a woman-centered story and he mostly talks about the real fears of what it means to become a mother, especially when one had no intention to do so.  It is a little crass and it is a little clunky, especially knowing that man is oh-so-desperately trying to capture the female voice and attitude.  Still, if it is that, then I don't really dislike this at all.  (Please note: I am completely aware that I'm a man writing about what it means to be a woman.  This hasn't been lost on me.)

The other version of the story might be a little bit gross.  It is the job of the storyteller to find that slice of life and make art of it.  Especially when dealing with drama, you have to make your characters flawed because the real world is really flawed.  However, there is a certain whiny category that doesn't necessarily meet the weight of what these women are going through.  A lot of the women in this maternity ward are almost neurotic about their behavior.  If I'm getting my characters right, Stina is our protagonist.  (It's hard to tell who the protagonist of the story is because the film attempts to give every woman her due over the course of the story.)  Stina is the one who goes in with the attitude that babies are for other people.  She's been pregnant before and, gosh darn it, she'll probably be pregnant again.

Maybe I've watched too many movies and read too many books, but her conflict resolved itself too quickly for the story to proceed in a way that wouldn't have been considered Bergman-esque.  She came to grips with the challenges that she faced at the midpoint of the movie and the film kept giving her screentime.  Of course she wouldn't have been able to deliver the child alive.  That sounds callous of me, but I can't help but look at her place as a fictional character inside of a movie.  But just imagine what it must have been like for those other characters inside the maternity ward.  (Note: They don't call the room that the ladies are in the "maternity ward" until they actually go into active labor.  I apologize for not knowing what the name of that room is.)  The reason that I'm kind of tied to the "grief" film as a concept is that there is no real good for having her lose the child outside the fact that it is very sad.  Maybe Bergman really wants to make the point that life is unfair and that a positive attitude does nothing to change how the world turns.  But we don't even have a post-game moment with Stina.  Stina appears catatonic.  It's very the end of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.  She lost the child.  There was no rhyme nor reason for why the child died in labor.  Instead, we have to depend on the reactions of the other characters.  It's through Stina's tragedy that Cissi calls her mother, which is nice and all.  

But there is something a little false about Cissi's call.  I mean, I applaud Bergman for being open to the notion that family will always be there, regardless of how much we might stray from them.  I get that.  I even like it.  But it also feels like it is an afterthought.  (I am going to confess something right here.  I intellectually get that this ending is unearned, but I don't want to trade it in for any other ending. It's because I'm a filthy hypocrite.) I guess there is something very Afterschool-Special about how Brita is the ideal nurse.  Brita gives her money to call her mother, holds her hand through the phone call, and then gives her money for a train ride.  I don't know why my brain can't comprehend that this is just a nice moment.  Part of me has to understand that so many women come in-and-out of this maternity ward and there are probably a million girls like Sissi, afraid to talk to her parents.  I just can't see that Brita could take that kind of hit every day.  This is depressing because I think all life is sacred and special, but Brita treats her like she's the main character of a movie...because Bergman made her the main character of a movie.  I want Brita to be real.  Oh my heavens, I almost need Brita to be real.  But in a movie this bleak, it almost feels like Brita is there so the movie can end and that the audience wouldn't cry themselves to sleep...or worse?

I didn't hate this movie, but that might only because it had good intentions and it finally deviated from the old "my husband is going to casually cheat on me" narrative that we've gotten time and again with Ingmar Bergman.  I like that we're highlighting women, especially women who are about to become mothers.  It has a beautiful intent, but a bit of a messy unpacking.