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A Ship Bound for India

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A Ship Bound for India
Directed byIngmar Bergman
Screenplay byIngmar Bergman
Based onSkepp till India land
by Martin Söderhjelm
Produced byLorens Marmstedt
Starring
CinematographyGöran Strindberg
Edited byTage Holmberg
Music byErland von Koch
Distributed byNordisk Tonefilm
Release date
  • 22 September 1947 (1947-09-22)
Running time
98 minutes
CountrySweden
LanguageSwedish

A Ship Bound for India (Swedish: Skepp till Indialand) is a 1947 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. It was originally released as A Ship to India in the United Kingdom and Frustration in the United States. The screenplay was written by Bergman, based on the play by Martin Söderhjelm.[1]

The film is about the relationships within a family, a subject with which Bergman often dealt in later films, and uses other common devices of Bergman such as the hard father figure.

Birger Malmsten, who plays the lead character Johannes, went on to feature in several later Bergman films.

The film was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or, which was known at the time as the Grand Prix.[2]

Plot

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Johannes is a sailor who returns home after seven years of travel and finds Sally, the girl he once loved, and many memories resurface in him. Realizing that he still loves her, he declares it to her but Sally rejects him. Johannes walks wandering on the beach and thinks back to the past, to something that happened seven years ago during a marine recovery. Since Captain Blom, his father, is absent, Johannes, in order to keep the sailors under control, takes command of the operation. Meanwhile, Blom goes between one tavern and another and in one of these he starts a fight and, after courting a girl named Sally, he takes her away with him. Blom is later diagnosed with a serious eye disease that will lead to blindness.

Sally goes to live in the Blom family's boat, but furious arguments break out between Johannes and his abusive father. Johannes and Sally fall in love and this causes Blom's anger to become even stronger. While Blom's wife tries to persuade her husband to return to her, Johannes and Sally make love in an old mill and Sally later confesses to the captain her love for Johannes. A heated discussion ensues in which Sally tells Blom that he is a total failure.

During the resumption of the recovery operation, where Johannes works under the keel as a diver while Blom is in charge of the pump, the latter tries to kill his son by interrupting the flow of air that goes to the diving suit. Johannes is saved, but Blom, in a fit of madness, plunges the recovered wreck into the sea and destroys everything. When the police arrive to arrest him, he throws himself out of the window, nearly killing himself.

After this shocking episode, Johannes embarks as a sailor and leaves for India, while Sally returns to sing and dance in the seedy club where she worked before. Before Johannes departs, he promises to take Sally away with him one day.

Seven years later, where the film began, Johannes goes back to Sally and reminds her of his promise. Initially, Sally resists and tells Johannes she wants nothing to do with him. After much insistence by Johannes, Sally eventually agrees to go away with him and they both depart on a ship together.

Cast

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Uncredited

References

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  1. ^ Vermilye, Jerry (2002). Ingmar Bergman: His Life and Films. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. pp. 56–57. ISBN 0786429593.
  2. ^ "Festival de Cannes: A Ship to India". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
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