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Thirst is an early and forgettable Ingmar Bergman wrought with overheated melodrama, abrasive performances and a subplot that fits like a square peg in a round hole.Ballet dancer Rut and husband Bertil are on holiday making their way across war torn Europe and back to Sweden. Rut like nearly all Bergman protagonists is experiencing a dark night of the soul and doubt about her artistic abilities. Some explanation is given in flash back; an affair with an arrogant military officer, a confrontation with his wife, a sadistic and predatory lesbian dance instructor and a possible abortion. Very loosely tied in is a subplot of old ballet school chum Viola whose fragile psyche is being exploited by a psychiatrist and another classmate.Bergman covers a lot of ground in under ninety minutes, very little of it coherently. There's visual commentary about the war in which Sweden was a spectator. Rut feels for the starving refugees at train stops and gives them food while others simply pull down the shades. She has a series of outbursts that become cloying after the first and her husband like the other male characters seems unable to cope or connect due to either their aggressive or passive chauvinism. Evening the playing field lesbians also get worked over with a little Bermanesque gay bashing. There are brief flashes of the visual brilliance that Bergman masterfully employed in his later, greater works especially on the train and with close-ups and reflections. But it is only a brief glimpse of what was to be, making Thirst little more than a glum, hysterical soap opera in a state of confusion.
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