"Secrets of women" or "Waiting women" is a film in which three women tell stories about their marriages or relationships. The women are in a summercottage and waiting for their men to arrive. Their men are all brothers of each other.
"Secrets of women" was a commercial succes at the time of release, but never became a Bergman classic.
From the three stories the third is the most successful. Coincidence or not, in this episode the characters are played by the regular Bergman actors Gunnar Björnstrand (as Fredrik Lobelius) and Eva Dahlbeck (as Karin).
The power of the movie does however not reside in the stories themselves, but in the ending that puts them together.
With this I do not mean that the stories are incomprehensible without the ending, the ending providing the crucial final twist that puts everything in place. I do mean however that the ending is crucial in interpreting the three stories. It provides the common moral of the stories .
All three stories are about an incident or a crisis in the marriage or relationship. In all three stories however the relationship emerges stronger. This is symbolised by the ending in which the men finally arrive. Despite all that has happened in the past, in the evening the couples are having a good time together.
At the end of the film a younger sister of a wife of one of the Lobelius brothers is planning to run away with her lover. Her elder sister wanted to stop them but is told to let them go. The hidden message is clear to me. Give them the chance to make the same muistakes we made, their relationship will only become better.
Thirty years after "Secrets of women" Bergman would make "Fanny and Alexander". This complicated family story has many themes, but the joyful Ekdahl family has some similarities with the Lobelius family in "Secrets of women". Also in "Fanny and Alexander" the members of the Ekdahl family are well aware of each others weaknesses, but this doesn't harm family-ties at all.
"Secrets of women" was a commercial succes at the time of release, but never became a Bergman classic.
From the three stories the third is the most successful. Coincidence or not, in this episode the characters are played by the regular Bergman actors Gunnar Björnstrand (as Fredrik Lobelius) and Eva Dahlbeck (as Karin).
The power of the movie does however not reside in the stories themselves, but in the ending that puts them together.
With this I do not mean that the stories are incomprehensible without the ending, the ending providing the crucial final twist that puts everything in place. I do mean however that the ending is crucial in interpreting the three stories. It provides the common moral of the stories .
All three stories are about an incident or a crisis in the marriage or relationship. In all three stories however the relationship emerges stronger. This is symbolised by the ending in which the men finally arrive. Despite all that has happened in the past, in the evening the couples are having a good time together.
At the end of the film a younger sister of a wife of one of the Lobelius brothers is planning to run away with her lover. Her elder sister wanted to stop them but is told to let them go. The hidden message is clear to me. Give them the chance to make the same muistakes we made, their relationship will only become better.
Thirty years after "Secrets of women" Bergman would make "Fanny and Alexander". This complicated family story has many themes, but the joyful Ekdahl family has some similarities with the Lobelius family in "Secrets of women". Also in "Fanny and Alexander" the members of the Ekdahl family are well aware of each others weaknesses, but this doesn't harm family-ties at all.