Love's Elusive Definition

What begins as simple tale of a gynecologist having an affair with a client becomes an unrelentingly destabilising sequence of events in 1954's A Lesson in Love (En lektion i kärlek). A comedy from Ingmar Bergman, it's a little odd seeing one of the great director's beautifully shot films accompanied by a goofy soundtrack replete with silly tuba sounds and slide whistles. But the film doesn't fail to be intriguingly intelligent and sexy.

Susanne (Yvonne Lombard), a dark haired beauty, petulantly argues David (Gunnar Bjornstrand) into cheating on his wife of many years. So the two go out on a little boat and are cuddling when Susanne complains about another boat that passes too close to them. She reveals the owner of this other boat is her husband.

This starts off a pattern in the film of characters interacting whose previously established relationship isn't made clear until some time later. In a brilliant scene on a train, David finds himself in a train car with a man and a woman. He takes bets with the man to see who can kiss the woman first. When we find out the woman is in fact married to one of the men, this sets up another ambiguity as David comes up with a new bet.

The effect is to make us contemplate the true nature of the characters' motives at the same time they're questioning the authenticity of their feelings for one another. It works brilliantly to create tension between the possibility that all feelings may be arbitrarily labelled differently from moment to moment and the reality of truly consistent affection.

A Lesson in Love is available on The Criterion Channel.