bestcelebrityblog

As J Hoberman notes in the Voice, there''s a lot of Ingmar Bergman on New York screens right about now. But one film''s the highlight of the bunch: "When revived in Paris, then-critic Jean-Luc Godard hailed Monika in a frenzy of enthusiasm as ''the cinematographic event'' of 1958. Bergman''s tale of heedless teenage love is a sort of neorealist Rebel Without a Cause - except that sex is acknowledged and the outlaw is a girl."

"Shot in rich black and white, Monika shows a director in absolute control of his medium and its singular expressivity," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "In the early city scenes Bergman crowds the frame with objects and people, creating a sense of claustrophobia for the lovers and for those of us watching them struggle to find a place of their own. Once they make their escape, the jammed, Cubistic cityscape gives way to pastoral vistas that melt into one another as the shimmering sun dissolves into images of glistening water and a sky as sheltering as it is limitless."

Updated through 11/15.

Posted by: dwhudson    Source