Brink of Life (Nara livet) (Directors Suite) (1958)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Booklet-Insert essay by Hamish Ford, Lecturer at Newcastle Uni.
Rating
Year Of Production	1958
Running Time	80:59
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ingmar Bergman
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Eva Dahlbeck Ingrid Thulin Bibi Andersson Barbro Hiort af Ornäs Erland Josephson Max Von Sydow Gunnar Sjöberg Ann-Marie Gyllenspetz Inga Landgré
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

      Brink of Life came straight after The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries in Ingmar Bergman's filmography. Also known as So Close to Life, it won best director at the Cannes Film Festival for Bergman and best actress shared among the four leads: Bibi Andersson, Eva Dahlbeck, Barbro Hiort af Ornas and Ingrid Thulin. If you are familiar with Bergman's films you then may have heard of Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, (yes, who can forget that chess scene so often parodied in other films, most recently in (500) Days of Summer) Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, The Faith Trilogy (i.e Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence), Persona, Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander. Yes, you may be familiar with some of these films, so why haven't you heard of Brink of Life? Especially after its critical success, coming so soon after The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries Bergman was gaining international recognition for his work among film critics, and Brink of Life proved to be no exception to this fact. It was well-received on its release in 1958, yet today, some 50 years later, this film is not known at all.

    Perhaps the reason may be the subject matter. At the time, showing the maternity process in a late-50s Swedish Hospital was a novel subject for filmmaking. Today, abortion, miscarriage and women's post-natal mental health are all concepts which are more familiar, and not so confronting, as in 1958. (Apparently, cinema-goers were prone to fainting while watching this film during its cinematic run.)

    This film marked the beginning of Bergman's intimate films. By that I mean films that were shot on a low budget, with few locations and few actors. Dr. Ford, in his essay on this film included as an extra feature of this DVD, describes this as a 'chamber' film, comparing it to orchestral music which has many instruments, whereas chamber music is more basic, with fewer instruments. Bergman would make other more memorable 'chamber' films in the 1960s and 70s, mainly at his home on the island of Faro. These include Through a Glass Darkly, The Silence, Persona and Cries and Whispers for example. The setting of Brink of Life is a maternity hospital, that is all we, the audience, get to see in 80 minutes.

    The other Bergman motif found in this film is the role of women. In Bergman films women are portrayed as being strong emotionally and character-wise in contrast to men who are close to them. Max von Sydow and Erland Josephson, both prominent Swedish actors of the 20th century, have very passive roles in this film. Ingrid Thulin, however, is unforgettable as the guilty mother who feels responsible for her miscarriage. She finds no solace in her husband, in fact, all three mothers share that same experience in the film.

    In 1957 Bergman made two classic films of cinematic history that dealt with death, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. The next logical step in his career to that point may have been to make a film that looks at life.

Video

Similarly to It Rains on Our Love, which has also been released by Madman's Directors Suite label in February, 2010, this film has not been restored and has been transferred onto DVD from an analogue source. However, the image quality is not as poor as It Rains on Our Love.

The aspect ratio is 1:33:1 fullscreen.

The average bitrate of the film is 5.58 m/b per sec. The main feature is only about 81 minutes long and despite been authored onto a single-layered DVD, compression is not a significant issue with this disc.

The black-and-white transfer looks washed out, with a tinge of yellow throughout. There are instances of cross colouration present, as there were on It Rains on Our Love.

Film artefacts are present at the beginning of the film and at the beginning of each film reel. After this, the film does not have as many artefacts, the transfer is much cleaner. There are very few instances of negative (black) artefacts, more instances of positive (white) artefacts are present as well as lines across the image, reel change markings and telecine wobble, which is mostly evident at the beginning of new film reels.

Again, Madman have included an option of subtitles in white or yellow and are easy to follow.

There is no RSDL change as the film is presented on a single-layered DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

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Shadow Detail
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Audio

Apart from the quick snatch of discordant string music heard at the beginning of the film, (much like the soundtrack to Persona eight years later) there is no use of music in the film.

The main audio track is in Swedish. It is encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 kbps.

Dialogue is clear and the audio is synchronised.

The audio transfer is unrestored so there is a constant background hiss, and at times, pops and crackles heard throughout the film, even more so than on It Rains on Our Love.

There is no surround channel usage as the main soundtrack is in mono.

The subwoofer is not utilised either.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Overall

Booklet - Insert essay by Hamish Ford, Lecturer in Film Studies at Newcastle University

Brink of Life was released in Region 2 in the United Kingdom as part of a series of early Bergman films in a box set entitled, Early Masterpieces by Ingmar Bergman. The films included are Dreams, Sawdust and Tinsel, It Rains on Our Love, Brink of Life and A Ship Bound for India. Also included are a pair of documentaries about the actors and actresses who worked with Bergman during his career entitled, The Women and Bergman and The Men and Bergman. Unfortunately, this box set is extremely hard to find, both for sale and for reference purposes. Even Artificial Eye's website does not currently list it. A Region 2 Scandinavian release has no extras but it does include English subtitles. As Madman's Directors Suite label has now released all five of the films included in the Artificial Eye box set, it would be reasonable to assert that the Madman releases have been licensed from Artificial Eye's transfers. Therefore, if you wish to purchase this film on DVD, as was the case with the Region 4 version of It Rains on Our Love, there's no reason to look beyond the Madman Directors Suite release.

    Brink of Life is a forgotten piece of Ingmar Bergman's filmography. Certainly, it is not as significant as other Bergman films such as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Persona for example, yet, it still deserves to be seen by Bergman fans and fans of world cinema in general.

    The average quality of the video and audio transfer should be no deterrent to fans who are familiar with Bergman's themes and motifs that he employed in his films from the mid-fifties onwards. The booklet containing an essay by Dr. Hamish Ford is another quality extra to aid you in your appreciation of this confronting film.

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