Prison - Ingmar Bergman

(aka "Fängelse" or "Prison" or "The Devil's Wanton (USA)")

directed by Ingmar Bergman
Sweden 1949

Only a year after experiencing his first taste of studio success with Music in Darkness, Ingmar Bergman set about making an even more challenging picture and was forced to work with a massively reduced budget. Based in and around a movie studio this experimental and intriguing picture is essentially a film within a film. A director is told by one of his old professors that the world is in the dominion of the devil, and decides to make the claim the subject of his latest picture. He then passes the idea onto a young journalist who is coincidently going through his own personal hell with his prostitute girlfriend and her violent pimp. This is a fascinating film, not only for its thematic tussle between the attraction of suicide and the comfort of faith, but for its many stylistic endeavors.

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Theatrical Release: Sweden 19 March 1949

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DVD Review: Tartan - Region 0 - PAL

Big thanks to Per-Olof Strandberg for the Review!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Tartan Region 0 - PAL
Runtime	1:15:39 (4% PAL speedup)
Video	1:1.33 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s
Audio	Swedish (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Subtitles	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Tartan Aspect Ratio: Fullscreen - 1:1.33 Edition Details: • Bergman trailers • Filmographies • Philip Strick Film Notes (booklet) • DVD-5 (SS-SL) DVD Release Date: 26 Jun 2006 Keep Case Chapters 16

Comments:

Tartan (UK) brings Ingmar Bergman's PRISON to a strong DVD transfer. The picture is flawless - extremely sharp with strong black levels. It's hard to believe that these film can look any better on DVD. There was once a white scratch, once a black scratch (for about 10 seconds), and once a textile in the background made some aliasing, but that's all for the negatives.

The sound is made from an optical source. Occasionally there's some distortion, that could be in the original optical sound. There's a few times a quite loud crack (the negative is broken and fixed).

I don't like that SF has changed their original B&W logo in the beginning for a new one, in widescreen, color and music that fits better for action movies. The cover states wrongly that these is DVD-9. It's DVD-5 (3.83 GB).

A strong film on a remarkable good DVD.

- Per-Olof Strandberg

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