Prison

Ingmar Bergman's 1949 film is the first he directed from an original screenplay entirely his own. A film director is visited by his old mathematics teacher, who brings him a great idea for a film: the Devil has declared that the Earth is already hell. The director does not take it seriously. But what happens in the life of a writer friend and his young lover keeps seeming to confirm it. The film is built as a film within a film, and every question Bergman would return to in later years is here in raw form: the absence of faith, despair, and whether art is any use against them. It was shot in eighteen days and the imagery leans toward expressionism. It is regarded as the most personal of his early works. Who it's for: viewers following Bergman's development and drawn to bleak European cinema. Who it's not for: anyone expecting the balance of mature Bergman; the film is loose and experimental.