Törst / Thirst

Ingmar Bergman: Törst / Thirst (1949). Eva Henning (Rut) and Birger Malmsten (Bertil). Midsummer 1946: the Swedish couple is having lunch while returning from an Italian holiday. Passing through Germania anno zero, the train is surrounded by starving children. Foto: Louis Huch © AB Svensk Filmindustri. From: Svensk Filmdatabas.

Ingmar Bergman: Törst / Thirst (1949). Midsummer 1946: passing through Germania anno zero. The train of the affluent Swedes is surrounded by hungry people. Foto: Louis Huch © AB Svensk Filmindustri. From: Svensk Filmdatabas.

Ingmar Bergman: Törst / Thirst (1949). Den erotiskt laddade scenen mellan Viola (Birgit Tengroth) och Valborg (Mimi Nelson). Foto: Louis Huch © AB Svensk Filmindustri. "På ett fint och taktfullt sätt hjälpte hon [Birgit Tengroth] mig att for­ma den lesbiska episoden. Det här var ett för sin tid eldfängt stoff." Ingmar Bergman i Bilder. From: www.ingmarbergman.se.

Ingmar Bergman: Törst / Thirst (1949). Den cyniske fröken Henriksson (Naima Wifstrand) med sina båda elever Rut (Eva Henning) och Valborg (Mimi Nelson). Foto: Louis Huch © AB Svensk Filmindustri. From: www.ingmarbergman.se.

Ingmar Bergman: Törst / Thirst (1949): the final montage of superimpositions starts with Bertil (Birger Malmsten) embracing Rut (Eva Henning). The emblem of the movie, the coin of Arethusa from Syracuse, appears upon them. Night waves crash against the shore. It is Midsummer. Sunlight shines beyond the dark clouds. Fade to black. My screenshot from C More.

Jano / Three Strange Loves / La Fontaine d'Aréthuse.
    SE 1949. PC: Svensk Filmindustri. Produktionsledare: Helge Hagerman. Inspelningsledare: Hugo Bolander.
    D: Ingmar Bergman. SC: Herbert Grevenius. Based on Törst (1948), a collection of short stories by Birgit Tengroth. DP: Gunnar Fischer – 35 mm – b&w – 1,37:1 – AGA-Baltic. AD: Nils Svenwall.  CH: Ellen Bergman. M: Erik Nordgren. Mozart: "Non più andrai" from Le nozze di Figaro (1786), lyr. Lorenzo Da Ponte, in Swedish "Säg farväl, lilla fjäril" (Bernhard Crusell, 1821), perf. Bengt Eklund. S: Lennart Unnerstad. ED: Oscar Rosander. Stills: Louis Huch.
    CAST:
Eva Henning, Rut, f.d. balettdansös
Birger Malmsten, Bertil, amanuens, konsthistoriker, hennes man
Birgit Tengroth, Viola, Bertils f.d. älskarinna
Hasse Ekman, doktor Rosengren, psykiater
Mimi Nelson, Valborg, Ruts kamrat i balettskolan
Bengt Eklund, Raoul, kapten, Ruts älskare
Gaby Stenberg, Astrid, Raouls fru
Naima Wifstrand, fröken Henriksson, balettlärarinna
Sven-Eric Gamble, glasmästeriarbetaren på Rosengrens mottagning
Gunnar Nielsen, Rosengrens assistentläkare
Estrid Hesse, patient hos Rosengren
Calle Flygare, den danske prästen på tåget
Monica Weinzierl, den lilla flickan på tåget
Else-Merete Heiberg, den lilla flickans mamma, norska
Verner Arpe, den tyske konduktören
Sif Ruud, den pratsjuka änkan på kyrkogården
Gerhard Beyer, tidningsförsäljaren i Basel
Herman Greid, stadsbudet i Basel
Laila Jokimo, en av Ruts balettkamrater
Inga Norin-Welton, en av Ruts balettkamrater
Öllegård Wellton, en av Ruts balettkamrater
Ingeborg Bergius, en av Ruts balettkamrater
Peter Winner, tysk polis
Britta Brunius, sjuksköterskan efter Ruts abort
Inga-Lill Åhström, balettskolepianisten
Erik Arrhenius, en man i kupén med festande tågpassagerare
Carl Andersson, en man i kupén med festande tågpassagerare
Inga Gill, en dam på hotellet
Wiktor "Kulörten" Andersson, portvakt
Gustaf A. Herzing, tysk polis
    Studio: Filmstaden Råsunda, Stockholm.
    Loc: Stockholm, Ornö (Sweden); Basel (Switzerland).
    Censorship: bared inner thigh in the second reel and Valborg's final violent advances to Viola in the fifth reel. – Censurklipp i akt 2 utgår scenerna med lårens blottande upp till blygden och i 5: sista avsnittet av den homosexuella inviten, där Valborg handgripligen söker våldföra sig på Viola (totalt 2 meter).
    2280 m / 84 min
    Urpremiär: 17 Oct 1949 Spegeln, Stockholm.
    Finnish premiere: 21 March 1952 Adlon, released by Adams Filmi Oy.
    Corona lockdown viewings.
    From the C More platform with Finnish subtitles (n.c.).
    Viewed at a forest retreat in Punkaharju on a tv screen, 26 July 2020.

AA: Ingmar Bergman used to mention Roberto Rossellini as an inspiration to Harbour City, and I sense a Rossellini context even in the Germania anno zero sequence of Thirst, also anticipating a film that the Italian had yet to make: Viaggio in Italia.

The married couple Rut (Eva Henning) and Bertil (Birger Malmsten) are returning from Sicily and Italy during Midsummer 1946, one year after the end of the Second World War. The Syracusan myth of Arethusa, immortalized in ancient Sicilian coins, becomes for them the symbol of the impossibility of love.

In a bold coup Bergman stages a Strindbergian account of a private hell on a train that is passing through the ruins of Europe, surrounded by starving children. During WWII, neutral Sweden prospered while the rest of Europe was devastated.

The marriage hell is put into perspective. Bertil has a callous and resigned attitude to the starvation, but Rut is immediately willing to donate all their food to the children. She has lost a baby in an abortion, as a side-effect of which she has become infertile. But she feels a special tenderness towards children.

In Bergman's cinema, an explicit world historical perspective is rare but not unique. The sequence has been realized with simple means, but the impact is powerful, and for me, it radiates over the director's whole oeuvre.

In the finale Bertil wakes up from a nightmare that he has slain Rut to death. In the bleak final dialogue Bertil confesses that he does not want to be alone and independent, because it would be worse.
    Rut: Worse than what?
    Bertil: Than the hell we have now. At least we have each other.

"Hell on Earth" was a theme that obsessed Bergman all his life, and the most explicit discussion of it had taken place in his previous film, Prison, where the Devil comes to rule on Earth and declares that we can go on like we do now. Apocalypse Now!

Thirst is based on a collection of short stories by Birgit Tengroth (1915–1983), who also appears in the film as Viola (see photo above). Tengroth was a multi-talented professional, a writer and an actress whose career started in the silent days in an uncredited child role in the Jerusalem series based on Selma Lagerlöf (Ingmarsarvet, 1925, directed by Gustaf Molander).

Thirst was Tengroth's penultimate film as an actress. Her last performance in a fiction film was in Flicka och hyacinter / Girl with Hyacinths (1950) directed by Hasse Ekman who plays Dr. Rosengren in Thirst. Both films are among the earliest to convey Lesbianism in Swedish cinema. "For me, men are a closed chapter. I have found the way, a woman's only way to freedom and independence", states the Lesbian Valborg (Mimi Nelson).

Tengroth could hardly endure Karin Swanström, who together with her husband had been heads of production at Svensk Filmindustri; Swanström had introduced transgressive ideas into the Swedish cinema in the comedy The Girl in Tails (Flickan i frack). Tengroth was married to the formidable critic Stig Ahlgren, and the inferno couple in Bergman's Wild Strawberries is reportedly a dead on portrait of Ahlgren and Tengroth.

Marianne Höök in her wonderful book on Ingmar Bergman (1962) credits Birgit Tengroth in waking up Ingmar Bergman to a new level of insight and subtlety in his understanding of the female psyche. "With a refined sense of tact she [Birgit Tengroth] helped me form the Lesbian episode. It was inflammatory stuff for its time", stated Bergman.

Thirst is a story of two solitudes. Rut, now languishing in marriage inferno, has been freed from a relationship with a married officer, Raoul (Bengt Eklund), who made her pregnant and required an abortion which made Rut infertile. She used to be a ballet dancer, but because of an injury she cannot dance anymore.

At the same time in Stockholm the widow Viola (Birgit Tengroth), Rut's dancer colleague, visits her husband's grave. She has even briefly been Bertil's lover, now abandoned and lonely. Suffering from "brain fever", she visits a psychiatrist (Hasse Ekman), who, however, only tries to seduce her. Depressed in Midsummer Stockholm where everybody is partying, she stumbles into yet another dancer colleague, Valborg (Mimi Nelson), and they share a bottle together in her apartment. But when even Valborg proceeds to seduce her, she becomes desolate. The film has started with an image of a dark whirlpool. Viola enters the shore. We notice a ripple. The rest is silence.

In the account of the ballet world, Bergman had home field advantage. The choreographer is his wife Ellen Bergman (née Ellen Hollender, Ellen Lundström before marriage, 1919–2007). Their children are Eva, Jan, Anna and Mats. Ellen Bergman was also a director, theatre manager, playwright and innovator in the theatre world.

The portrait of the psychiatrist is a vicious caricature. In reality, a person like him would lose his licence immediately (but there is a reference in the dialogue that he does not possess a licence in the first place). Professionals of mental health usually admire Bergman, but a psychoanalyst friend of mine cannot stand him, probably partly because of Bergman's open hostility towards the profession. Perhaps Bergman felt that psychiatrists know too much and yet not enough. They could expose his screen memories without truly understanding the delicate borderland between dream and reality.

 "You know nothing about life", Viola says to the doctor. Bergman altered this scene considerably from Tengroth's story. Both Captain Raoul and Doctor Rosengren belong to the hateful authority figures of Bergman's Forties. Rosengren is also a predecessor of the Vergérus lineage, culminating in Bishop Vergérus in Fanny and Alexander. "Your benevolence is a fraud", Viola says to Rosengren.

Bergman's visual expression keeps maturing. His portrait shots are memorable, also in bit parts, including the old woman whom we meet as a patient of Dr. Rosengren. More than before, he uses mirrors in an expressive way, for instance in the multiplied look involved in the scene in the ballet where Miss Henriksson (Naima Wifstrand) examines the two young ballerinas, Rut and Valborg (see photo above). He is a master of the moving camera and the long take but also of the montage technique including in the scene in the train corridor where both Bertil and Rut consider opening the door while the train runs at full speed. Bergman was always fascinated by trains, also in A Lesson in Love, Kvinnodröm / Dreams, and Silence. The film is based on a montage of flashbacks, memories and dreams during the train ride. There is a Buñuelian moment in Rut's summer paradise flashback when Raoul in cold blood catches a snake and drops it into an anthill.

Because Thirst in some ways anticipates Viaggio in Italia, it also anticipates Antonioni's trilogy of solitude. Thirst is an account of existential solitude, with a strong 1940s accent, and a very original feminine emphasis.

What is the thirst all about? A thirst for love, I'd propose.

Rut was disappointed in her relationship with the officer Raoul, and her husband, the humanist Bertil is emotionally challenged. Also dancing was for Rut more than a métier: "For me dancing is not a profession. It is my second home, more real than the regular home". Losing her calling was a blow, and losing her baby and her fertility an even more crushing blow. She drinks a lot, which does not make life better with Bertil. But she has a great reservoir of love and a great thirst for love.

The tiny train cabin of the unhappy Swedish couple is surrounded by the darkness of devastated Europe. Upon learning the full truth of the Holocaust many found that God was dead. There was a widespread thirst for a revival of faith, hope and a reason for living.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM INGMAR BERGMAN.SE:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM INGMAR BERGMAN.SE:

Det är vid midsommartid 1946. Platsen är Hotel Krafft i Basel.

I ett rum på hotellet har Rut just vaknat. Hennes man Bertil sover vidare. Hon tänker tillbaka på sin kärlekshistoria med Raoul:

Rut och Raoul är ute och seglar. De badar vid en ö. När hon börjar tala om framtida lycka tillsammans, får hon veta att han är gift och har barn.

Raouls fru kommer hem till Rut. Hon vill se sin mans älskarinna. Strax därpå dyker Raoul upp. Folk pratar, talar hon om för honom. De börjar gräla.

Rut berättar för Raoul att hon ska ha barn. Han säger att han inte kan vara fadern och kallar henne hora.

Rut låter göra abort och blir steril.

På hotellet i Basel har Bertil vaknat. Han och Rut är snart inne i ett böljande gräl. De ältar bristen på pengar, hennes alkoholkonsumtion och hans tidigare förhållande till en kvinna vid namn Viola. Ögonblick av tröstande ömhet bryter igenom. Hon kommer säkert att bli bra och kunna dansa igen, säger han.

Bertil och Rut är på hemresa. På järnvägsstationen, strax innan deras tåg ska avgå, kommer de fönster mot fönster till en kupé i ett södergående tåg. Där tittat Raoul och hans fru ut.

I Stockholm har Viola, en tid Bertils älskade, en uppgörelse med sin psykiater. Han försöker övertala henne att fira midsommar med honom. Hon avvisar honom. Ni behöver en människa, säger han, huvudsaken är att älska. Nu går jag, säger hon. Ni är inte frisk, försöker han. Ni är inte ens legitimerad, svarar hon och går.

På tåget dricker Rut och Bertil vin. Tåget stannar vid en station. Utanför fönstret vimlar det av svältfödda barn. Hon delar med sig av deras proviant. Bertil tycker det är vämjeligt, som att mata höns.

På natten grälar Rut och Bertil om sina tidigare kärleksaffärer. Du bedrog mig med Viola, säger hon. Du hade ditt för dig, säger han. Jag berättade om det, men du teg, säger hon.

Rut minns sin tid på balettskolan:

Rut hade svårt att stå pall för den hårda baletträningen. Lärarinnan är krävande. Du får inte låta dig hanteras hur som helst, säger hennes väninna Valborg.

Vart tog Valborg vägen? undrar Rut i tågkupén.

Stockholm ligger öde i midsommarhelgen. Viola stöter ihop med sin ungdomskamrat Valborg och följer med henne hem. Valborg bjuder på sprit. De kan behöva muntra upp sig.

Valborg gör allt tydligare sexuella närmanden. När hon vill bjuda upp till dans, rusar Viola i väg.

Viola vandrar genom det övergivna Stockholm. Här och där hörs festande människor. Hon söker sig till vattnet. Från en kajkant tittar hon ner i djupet. Det är som om det inbjöd till ett sista famntag.

Samtidigt anländer tåget med Rut och Bertil till Stockholms Central. De kysser varandra. Tillsammans kan de kanske komma tillrätta med sitt gemensamma helvete.