Between Water and Dockyards

Conflicts between conscience and morality, between emotional need and practical obligation, drive the central drama of Ingmar Bergman's 1948 film Hamnstad (Port of Call). It seems appropriate, then, that the film is often fraught with a conflict of tone. At times I thought it was due to censors interfering with the work but, on the other hand, it does make sense in light of the intractable issues Bergman addresses.

The film begins with a pretty young woman, Berit (Nine-Christine Jonsson), attempting to commit suicide by jumping into the bay. The shots have enough similarity to Kim Novak's famous plunge in Vertigo ten years later it made me wonder if Hitchcock had seen Hamnstad.

Berit desires escape from her friends and family and seemingly all humanity. A flashback scene to her childhood shows her father's (Nils Dahlgren) attempt to hug and comfort her before he's angrily interrupted by her mother (Berta Hall), who interprets the action as an assault. It's an early step in a lifetime of Berit being unable to trust declared and implied motives of anyone around her, good or bad.

After her suicide attempt, the next time we see her she's laughing and dancing in a crowded dance hall. There she meets a sailor named Gosta (Bengt Eklund) whom she laughingly, immediately calls out for using the same lines on her all the other guys do. She does this throughout their subsequent relationship, poking holes in the casual lies his culture has taught him to tell.

When he finds out about the other men she's slept with, he flies into an angry passion, and ironically goes off and hires a prostitute so he can complain to her about all the men his girlfriend has slept with. The obvious absurdity may be more than a simplistic portrait of sexual hypocrisy. It may be Gosta's subconscious attempt to break down his morality to satisfy his conscience and prevent him from abandoning Berit. His own conflict is a nice mirror for Berit's.

Gosta gets a job at the docks where he asks one of the older workers a pretty good question--"Why's it so easy to overlook your own faults and not those of others?" The older dock worker responds by telling him that life is meaningless, human selfishness is all there is. Only in a Bergman film would an old dock worker talk like that. I do love it.

The last act of the film is dominated by an abortion Berit's friend Gertrud (Mimi Nelson) has, as though the moral conflicts weren't thorny enough. Berit's mother and the authorities torture Berit with sanctimony and threats of reformatory school. The film ends a little too tidily for a Bergman film, or a film by any filmmaker tackling these issues, yet there is some ambiguity about it that leaves one wondering.

Port of Call is available on The Criterion Channel.