Cinema
Night Games
Nattlek
Mai Zetterling · 1966
Synopsis
Jan, in his thirties, returns with his fiancée Mariana to the castle where he grew up. Memories come back: at twelve, he lived in a wealthy and decadent family, under the sway of his mother Irène, a neurotic woman who threw one party after another, filled with strange guests, with a jazz orchestra, and who was for the child the object of an unsettling adoration. The past mingles with the present without warning, and his relationship with Mariana grows increasingly strained.
Context
The second feature film by its author, written with her husband David Hughes; the book of the same title that she published in 1966 is given sometimes as the source of the film, sometimes as its sequel. The film was shot at Penningby Castle, in Roslagen, and presented at Venice on 2 September 1966: the public screening was banned there, the jury saw it separately, and the poster, taken from an anatomical drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, was judged improper. It was entered in competition there, and was censored in several countries. It was released in 2022 in the United States in a box set of three of her films. Ingrid Thulin plays the mother; the music is by Jan Johansson and Georg Riedel.
Who it is for
A hundred and five minutes, in Swedish, in black and white. The film moves without warning from the present to childhood, and some scenes remain harsh.
Prizes and reception
The most controversial of its director's films: at Venice, the crowd was such that the police had to form a cordon in front of the festival palace.