"Actor: Naima Wifstrand"

• Smiles Of A Summer Night | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £10.16   |  Saving you £9.83 (96.75%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The film which established its Swedish writer/director on the stage of world cinema, 1956's Smiles of a Summer Night is what some people would consider a contradiction in terms--an Ingmar Bergman comedy. Set in the 19th century, Smiles features Bergman stalwart Gunner Bjornstrand as Fredrik, a lawyer yet to consummate his marriage to his young wife Anne. He has hankerings after a former mistress, the voluptuous actress Desiree, who is now mistress to the bellicose Count Malcolm, whose own wife attempts to seduce Fredrik in order to make Malcolm jealous. Fredrik's wife, meanwhile, hankers after her own stepson, an austere young man confused by his repressed sexual longings. This web of romantic intrigue is eventually disentangled at a weekend party held by Desiree's mother, a formidably acerbic, fairy godmother-style figure.Smiles of a Summer Night is sparkling but mordant, stronger on absurdism than belly laughs and it is lent shade by the long shadows of existential angst. It conveys all of Bergman's core messages about human relationships but in a light, operatic bundle of cinematic joy.On the DVD: Presented in the original academy ratio, the film is restored here to its original, silvery glory. There are extensive notes from Bergman's memoirs, in which he talks candidly about the near-suicidal depression he was in when he wrote this ironically light script, as well as additional notes from critic Derek Malcolm, who aptly compares the film to a Mozart opera and Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. --David Stubbs

• Wild Strawberries | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Made in 1957, Wild Strawberries finds the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman at the height of his powers. It's a road movie, in effect: an aged medical professor (Victor Sjöström)--lonely, disillusioned and haunted by dreams of death--travels across country to receive an honorary degree. But as with all good road movies, the outer journey parallels an inner one. Incidents along the road conjure up memories, and Professor Borg finds himself forced to confront the failures and lost opportunities of his life. Gentle and elegiac, Bergman's film is a masterpiece of compassion and reconciliation, and also a tribute to his predecessor Sjöström, the greatest Swedish director of the silent era. The 78-year-old film maker gives an austere, moving performance, and Bergman treats his lined features like a landscape of yearning and regret. Sjöström is ably supported by other members of Bergman's regular repertory company of the period, particularly Bibi Andersson, heartbreakingly appealing, as the lost love of Borg's youth. --Philip Kemp

• The Magician | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £7.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (233.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A sort of existential horror movie set in what often feels like a darkly imaginary 1846, The Magician is Ingmar Bergman's meditation on the restrictive nature of modern rationalism. Max Von Sydow cuts a suitably melancholy and mystical figure as Dr Vogler, the mute hypnotist who travels with a group of players to Stockholm, only to be examined and humiliated by a team of sceptical inquisitors led by Gunnar Bjornstrand's Dr Vergerus and a hog-like police chief. Dr Vogler exacts his revenge on Vergerus, however, in an extraordinary feat of illusion.With its elaborate, occasionally expressionistic sets and its feel of a scrupulously re-enacted nightmare, The Magician is reminiscent at times of Poe or even The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. However, the "below stairs" characters--including Ake Fridell's ebullient Master of Ceremonies and a host of giggling wenches--add comic energy to what is otherwise a startling and sombre reflection of the nature of art and life. It would prove a turning point in Bergman's career as he moved away from his early, "romantic" period.On the DVD: Presented in the original academy ratio, the mix of soft light and harsh shade for which credit should go to photographer Gunnar Fischer, is well-restored here. In notes from his memoirs included here, Bergman relates how his adventures and privations as part of a theatre company in Malmo provided inspiration for The Magician, while critic Ronald Bergman's notes talk of "the ability of the artist to find truth in both fact and fantasy". --David Stubbs

• Essential Bergman Collection | DVD | (05/12/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Wild Strawberries (1957): The film that catapulted Ingmar Bergman to the forefront of world cinema is the director's richest most humane movie. Traveling to receive an honorary degree professor Isak Borg (masterfully played by the veteran Swedish director Victor Sjostrom) is forced to face his past come to terms with his faults and accept his approaching death. Through flashbacks and fantasies dreams and nightmares Wild Strawberries captures a startling voyage of self-dis

• Hour Of The Wolf | DVD | (02/08/2004) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (62.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Haunted by demons past and present artist Johan Borg fights a losing battle to retain his sanity and maintain his artistic prowess. His wife Alma desperate to help him finds herself starting to share his hallucinations. But as Johan's mind continues to unravel Alma is forced to choose bewteen her love and her life...

• Three Strange Loves | DVD | (26/07/2004) from £6.99   |  Saving you £13.00 (185.98%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ingmar Bergman's dramatisation of four Birgit Tengroth short stories novel which interweaves several episodes from the lives of Rut (Henning) and her husband Bertil (Malmsten)... Intricate and intense this powerful psychological drama is based on works by Birgit Tengroth (who also plays Viola in the film) and stands as a true Ingmar Bergman classic. Upon its original release in 1949 the lesbian relationship featured in the film was removed by censors: Bergman's original vision is