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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 0 DVD: LANGUAGES: Swedish ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Booklet, Filmographies, Interactive Menu, Production Notes, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: En Lektion i Kärlek constitutes one of Ingmar Bergman's more overtly entertaining films. In this highly engaging comedy, Bergman reunites Gunnar Bjornstrand and Eva Dahlbeck, who had already teamed to great effect in the final, comic episode of Secrets of Women (1952), and he once again casts them as an amusingly antagonistic husband and wife. Bjornstrand's character, David Erneman, is a successful gynecologist who has jeopardized his sixteen-year marriage by entering into an affair with one of his patients. In retaliation, his wife, Marianne, departs for Copenhagen to revive relations with a former fiancé. David initially seems only slightly disturbed by his wife's action, but when his affair ends and he enjoys an afternoon with his inscrutable daughter (Harriet Andersson, in an especially plucky turn), he determines to embark for Copenhagen and win back his wife. But his initial efforts at a reunion hardly bring him success, and only after a barroom altercation with his brutish rival does David seem to rekindle his wife's affection for him. En Lektion i Kärlek is a pivotal film in the Bergman canon, reviving his fortunes after the critics' rejection of Gycklarnas Afton (Sawdust and Tinsel) (1953) and spurring him toward his comic masterpiece, Sommarnattens Leende (Smiles of a Summer Night) (1955). Bergman came to regard En Lektion i Kärlek as a divertissement, but the film is of a greater magnitude than usual comedies of domestic life, and Bergman concludes it with the endearing image of Cupid strolling past the hotel room of the reunited couple. ...A Lesson in Love ( En Lektion i kärlek )
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Bergman's comedy of marital infidelity and love is a brief entertainment between the more serious works by which he is known.Bjornstrand and Dahlbeck-having honed their comic chemistry in Waiting Women-play gynaecologist ,David Erneman and his wife Marianne, in this structurally audacious comedy.Dahlbeck especially is enchanting and elusive in the role of Bergman's ex-wife,Gun.A Lesson in Love is a lesson in film-making with it's commercial need to prove itself.Because of his growing confidence as a writer-director,a good portion of the flash-backs have elapsed before he has revealed that David and Marianne are married and more than merely strangers on a train.
After 15 years of marriage David is having a summer affair with Suzanne,he has grown apart from his family and children.Marianne is unhappy and leaves for Copenhagen to renew her friendship with Carl-Adam,the man she gave up at the altar to marry David.But David is tired of his mistress and wants nothing better than to return to his wife.He arranges to get on the same train as Marianne,while his chauffeur drives to Copenhagen.On the train a series of flashbacks reveal scenes of their life together.The trick is we don't immediately realize they are a
married couple and get drawn into their charade as he woos her like a lover.There is a cynical but light-hearted banter between the two like combatants of dry wit.
There is a beautiful scene between Bjornstrand and his rebellious daughter(Harriet Anderson) where subtle insights are expressed.The wittiness of the dialogue and the elegant jousting show the maturation of Bergman's approach to emotional conflict.David can lament a `woman only needs a man for procreation,otherwise he counts for nothing',while Marianne can joke that a`mature grown man is a rarity,so that one has to find the child that best suits her'.Bergman reinforces this observation that the ideal wife is both a lover and a mother by having Erneman's elderly father being brow-beaten by his spouse of 49 years into changing into log-johns before the family departs for his annual birthday picnic.Pitched between the rigours of Sawdust and Tinsel and the wiser
resonance of Smiles of a Summer's Night.
After 15 years of marriage David is having a summer affair with Suzanne,he has grown apart from his family and children.Marianne is unhappy and leaves for Copenhagen to renew her friendship with Carl-Adam,the man she gave up at the altar to marry David.But David is tired of his mistress and wants nothing better than to return to his wife.He arranges to get on the same train as Marianne,while his chauffeur drives to Copenhagen.On the train a series of flashbacks reveal scenes of their life together.The trick is we don't immediately realize they are a
married couple and get drawn into their charade as he woos her like a lover.There is a cynical but light-hearted banter between the two like combatants of dry wit.
There is a beautiful scene between Bjornstrand and his rebellious daughter(Harriet Anderson) where subtle insights are expressed.The wittiness of the dialogue and the elegant jousting show the maturation of Bergman's approach to emotional conflict.David can lament a `woman only needs a man for procreation,otherwise he counts for nothing',while Marianne can joke that a`mature grown man is a rarity,so that one has to find the child that best suits her'.Bergman reinforces this observation that the ideal wife is both a lover and a mother by having Erneman's elderly father being brow-beaten by his spouse of 49 years into changing into log-johns before the family departs for his annual birthday picnic.Pitched between the rigours of Sawdust and Tinsel and the wiser
resonance of Smiles of a Summer's Night.
Format:DVD
"Witness this lesson in love with an indulgent smile" says voice over the title credits.
Well, i was prepared to smile for about 20 minutes. As long as luscious Yvonne Lombard was on screen as Gunnar Bjornstrand's minxy bit of fluff. "I've been having fantasies about you" she's saying all lush. "I'm just a little girl". (So go and jump on her Bjornstrad). "I'm at least a big a bore as your husband" says he. (He's pushing her out his surgery!) "I like it when you scold me" she says.
"I prefer my simple life with its vexations and petty joys. I prefer my slippers and the pleasantly bland log fire to your perfumed body" he's saying, trying to blow her off. His resistance is lame though. "I want to touch you, let your fire erase my inertia and boredom, pierce the grey refuse of routine"
That was a good start. Lets have more of that. Lets have more of the gorgeous Miss Lombard please - being lusted after.
But she's soon disappeared out the film.
It goes downhill after that.
Lurching into silly slapstick and unfunny farce.
"Why didn't we ever play with one another David?" says (Eva Dahlbeck) his wife. Have fun. Be light-hearted. Break themselves out of that grey refuse of routine she means. "What is love anyway? A strenuous grimace which ends in a yawn" says she cynically.
By the 2nd half of the film the farcical tone has become too blatant. Maybe Bergman was wanting to draw in the punters - the broad comedic brushstrokes aimed at pleasing a box office audience.
Kind of disappointing come the end.
More Yvonne Lombard being minxy would have kept me interested (she never acted in another Bergmann film either. I just looked at her profile on IMDB)
Well, i was prepared to smile for about 20 minutes. As long as luscious Yvonne Lombard was on screen as Gunnar Bjornstrand's minxy bit of fluff. "I've been having fantasies about you" she's saying all lush. "I'm just a little girl". (So go and jump on her Bjornstrad). "I'm at least a big a bore as your husband" says he. (He's pushing her out his surgery!) "I like it when you scold me" she says.
"I prefer my simple life with its vexations and petty joys. I prefer my slippers and the pleasantly bland log fire to your perfumed body" he's saying, trying to blow her off. His resistance is lame though. "I want to touch you, let your fire erase my inertia and boredom, pierce the grey refuse of routine"
That was a good start. Lets have more of that. Lets have more of the gorgeous Miss Lombard please - being lusted after.
But she's soon disappeared out the film.
It goes downhill after that.
Lurching into silly slapstick and unfunny farce.
"Why didn't we ever play with one another David?" says (Eva Dahlbeck) his wife. Have fun. Be light-hearted. Break themselves out of that grey refuse of routine she means. "What is love anyway? A strenuous grimace which ends in a yawn" says she cynically.
By the 2nd half of the film the farcical tone has become too blatant. Maybe Bergman was wanting to draw in the punters - the broad comedic brushstrokes aimed at pleasing a box office audience.
Kind of disappointing come the end.
More Yvonne Lombard being minxy would have kept me interested (she never acted in another Bergmann film either. I just looked at her profile on IMDB)
Format:DVD
Like most people I came to know Bergman for his later films, like Persona and Autumn Sonata, and so was surprised, albeit pleasantly, to unearth A Lesson In Love. It still contains many elements of 'classic' Bergman, in that it's about unstable love in unstable lives, but it's much less intense than his later films. This is written about as being a comic film, which it isn't really if we're thinking of comedy in its classic sense, but if we're thinking of art-house comedy, then it qualifies in the same way that Kieslowski's Three Colours White or Dekalog 9 are comedies, which means that its comedy is all quite dark and a little sadistic underneath.
The plot considers a couple who have grown apart, have taken lovers and are now thinking of divorce. However, the husband has second thoughts and chases his wife to Denmark, where she is going to meet her lover, who happens to be the man she ditched at the altar for her current husband. They meet on the train and discuss their past, which is retold through flashbacks, before meeting with her lover in Copenhagen. I won't give away what happens here for fear of ruining the film for anyone, but it contains some comic elements and was possibly my least favourite part of the film.
Alongside the main plot of husband and wife is their daughter's life. She is tormented about her existence as a woman and longs to be a boy, much to the distress of her family. Her long chat with her father about her mother and their dying marriage was the highlight of the film for me - tender and beautifully paced Bergman at his best.
The plot considers a couple who have grown apart, have taken lovers and are now thinking of divorce. However, the husband has second thoughts and chases his wife to Denmark, where she is going to meet her lover, who happens to be the man she ditched at the altar for her current husband. They meet on the train and discuss their past, which is retold through flashbacks, before meeting with her lover in Copenhagen. I won't give away what happens here for fear of ruining the film for anyone, but it contains some comic elements and was possibly my least favourite part of the film.
Alongside the main plot of husband and wife is their daughter's life. She is tormented about her existence as a woman and longs to be a boy, much to the distress of her family. Her long chat with her father about her mother and their dying marriage was the highlight of the film for me - tender and beautifully paced Bergman at his best.
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