Port of Call (1948)

Not rated, but this one gets a clear R-rating in my heart.  I mean, there's this one casual shot of a woman changing, involving nudity.  Couple with that the fact that the entire third act is about a botched abortion that leads to a woman dying.  The entire film is about sex shaming the protagonist, so all of this should be kept in mind before watching.  Also, one of the opening shots Just because something is black-and-white doesn't necessarily mean it is for all audiences.

DIRECTOR:  Ingmar Bergman

Guys...I'm being a little naughty.  Two things I have to do everyday on top of my job and parenthood: exercise and read 50 pages a day. I exercised already.  Check that one off.  But I haven't read yet.  I tend to write these blogs only if everything else is done.  Well, I will have access to the novel I'm reading later, but I won't have access to a computer.  So I'm placing all my bets on knocking both of these things off and having a tremendously productive day.  Also, I'm in the homestretch of the box set, so I'm really jazzed that I'm almost done.

The fine folks at Criterion are smart cookies, I'll tell you.  I was a fool approaching Bergman the way I did.  (There might be some irony to that statement because I used to adore Bergman and now I'm incredibly skeptical.)  I previously watched The Seventh Seal and Fanny and Alexander before watching the Eclipse box set of Early Bergman.  In my mind, that Early Bergman set was a one-to-one lead into waht would be some amazing storytelling later on.  Now that I've seen the bulk of Bergman's work, which all happens to reflect on the justification of casual sexual cruelty, the early work just reads different.  Part of me sees stuff like Port of Call as an attempt to push boundaries and figure out what it means to be an artist.  The really weird thing about Bergman is that he has always been an incredibly technically skilled director, even as a young man.  

Bergman's later work looks nothing like his early work.  The funny thing is that those early pictures feel so unobtrusive. They really look like Hollywood films.  I mentioned this in Thirst, but Bergman's later films embrace the minimalism when it comes to set and music.  There's straight up a score in Port of Call and I don't know why that stands out so much. This all comes down to seeing a young Bergman oh-so-desperate to rebel against a system that encourages standardization.  

I look at the end of the film as a bit of a travesty.  Listen, I'm not in love with Port of Call.  I don't outlike dislike it.  But it does feel like the Swedish version of Reform School Girls.  I've seen a lot of movies made by angry filmmakers who throw a bit of a temper tantrum through their films.  But even in the biggest tantrums, I at least appreciate that the directors have something that they want to say.  I don't think that Port of Call is necessarily a tantrum.  I will say that it is a bit of a sledgehammer, coming across as a mix of an exploitation film and an ABC Afterschool Special.  It wants to talk about the casual abuse of women in society as second class citizens and how girls with any degree of agency tend to be criminalized, leading into a heavy-handed commentary on underground abortions.  There are things I like; there are things I don't.  That's not where I'm coming from in this blog.  But what I really hate is the last shot.

In the film noir era, it was also the early days of self-regulation in Hollywood.  We're talking about the institution of the code, which would be the forefather of the MPAA.  Film noir, by ambiguous definition, was about exploring and almost glamorizing vice.  It's the same reason that we watch Breaking Bad or The Sopranos.  We want to go on the other side of the tracks and see how attractive sin can get.  But because it was a time of self-regulation, every story --no matter how seedy --had to end with sin being punished and virtue overcoming.  It's why the cops burst into the hideout at the end of every crime film.  That was the deal.  That's very much how Port of Call ends.  

Berit and Gosta had escaped a trial that threatened to take Berit away for her complicity in a death that wasn't her fault. The entire film was a condemnation that said, unequivically, that this society was toxic for girls like Berit.  She couldn't succeed no matter what she did.  She was a moral character who lived with this scarlet letter for the entire film and things weren't getting better.  Gosta booking the boat to leave this place was the natural place that the film should have ended on.  After all, that scene exists.  Clearly, Bergman thinks that the reality was that the Sweden that Berit and Gosta grew up in was a prison.  But because, in the eyes of the law, that was a slander against society...they just decide that things will get better?

Can I tell you what I like versus what I dislike about this movie?  I can completely get behind Berit.  Starting the story in medias res, where Berit is committing suicide after something that we'll only discover later is a fascinating way to explore how Berit got to this point.  Yeah, heavy handed and melodramatic as heck, but I don't care.  It's still very watchable.  Okay.  But Gosta is a problem in this movie. Like a really big problem.

Absolutely this is Berit's story.  Honestly, I shouldn't care about Gosta at all.  If anything, Gosta is more of a sounding board so Berit can have a reason to tell her tale.  Okay.  I get that.  But Gosta is all over the place in terms of characterization.  What I'd like to think is that Bergman wanted a man who was better than the other men in her life, but also had a lot of those toxically male character traits.  Unfortunately, I don't know if Gosta read that way.  I hated Gosta from moment one.  Introducing your character as "aloof" might be a hard thing to get people to get past.  Yeah, Gosta is the one who sticks with Berit for the film.  He ultimately stands by her after putting her through a bunch of crap.  The problem is that Gosta's moral code is a bit of a mystery for the entire length of the film.  

I have no idea what Gosta is going to do from moment to moment.  I don't even know how Gosta feels about Berit for a lot of the film.  Yes, he gets into a fight over Berit's honor when three guys hurl sexual insults at her after a date.  Okay.  He then takes her to a hotel, faking a husband-wife relationship to be a bit naughty and to avoid scandal.  But then he flies off the handle when she reveals that she's had a past.  That past, by the way, is incredibly tame. Sure, I'm not in 1948.  But she's contextualizing so much.  Mom is a monster.  Dad was abusive.  The guy she met housed her when she was on the street.  Like, Gosta freaking out on Berit is meant to push the story, not based on what his character previously did.  

It's not like that characteristic hasn't been attributed to other male characters in romances.  I'm watching Nobody Wants This and Noah is gross sometimes.  There is a wide divide between Noah, for whom I am rooting, and Gosta, who feels like an old man casually hitting on a young girl.  Gosta is constant vascillating between human being and complete jerk and he's the guy we're meant to be excited about?  He is vanilla sometimes and spoiled cottage cheese the next.  The thing with Noah is that he's great most of the time, but has a couple of yellow flags.  Gosta isn't great at his best and feels like he's being stuck with someone he's not that into, despite the fact that he makes Berit tell him that she's in love with him.  Also, that stage business with the cigarette flip sometimes goes against what is necessary for the plot.

Either way, it's more interesting than good. It's not not-enjoyable.  But in terms of quality film, it's too safe while trying to be rebellious.