Only Ingmar Bergman could make a film chronicling the entirety of a couple’s relationship, one marked by only moments of sunlight breaking through the dark clouds of unmitigated angst, ambition, and sarcasm, and get away with calling it To Joy. The title holds secondary meaning, though, since both the singularly self-obsessed and self-destructive central character, Stig, and his lovely, long-suffering wife, Marta, are musicians in a second-rate orchestra led by a fatherly but jaded conductor/shepherd who tends to the young lovers despite Stig’s fits of delusion and near-sociopathic invective. Sounds like fun, right? In fairness, there is no doubt that this is the work of a 32-year-old who is well on his way to mastery, and the performances and characters are meant to be the kind of stagey archetypes that Bergman will use to great effect throughout his career. But in case you glance across the title and think that this might just be the Bergman date movie you never knew existed, and your date is not a second year theater major full of piss and vinegar, I would humbly suggest that you think again. (Try Smiles of a Summer Night or The Magic Flute instead.)
To Joy
August 20th, 2009 · No Comments
Tags: Capsule · Director · Drama · Foreign Language · Romance
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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