Crisis

Ingmar Bergman’s intriguing directorial debut, in which a young woman is torn between the traditional rural life of her family and the bright lights of the big city.

Bergman’s directorial debut, adapted from a play, is a melodrama about a young woman torn between her loving foster mother and her hitherto neglectful birth mother, who promises a more exciting life in the city. In contrast to the more schematic aspects of the plot, the scenes involving (soon-to-be Bergman regular) Olin as a diabolical but troubled gigolo presage the dark complexities to come in the great director's later works.