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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Overlooked Bergman Film, 20 November 1999
Author: iF.... (vertraeumen@mindspring.com) from USA

A delightful film about the love of two women-the owner of a model agency and her top model. On a photographic outing to another city, both have strange day affairs with married men. The film, as relentless as it is tender, is a deeply probing study into the psyche of desire. Bergman's success is derived from exquisite scenes of austere romanticism and painful irony. Rarely has sexual obsession been so accurately observed. Dreams is yet another masterpiece by Bergman, yet sadly underrated and unknown. For anyone who appreciates great storytelling, and masterful filmmaking should do themselves a favor and watch "Dreams". Note: Look for Bergman's cameo as the man with the poodle at the hotel.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
"Our sadness weighs down the film...", 14 April 2008
8/10
Author: Galina from Virginia, USA

Ingmar Bergman's early film Dreams (1955), beautiful but sadly underrated and little known, presents the stories about two dissimilar women and their loves, and touches on all the timeless and tough realities of torment, longing, loneliness, and aging in a simple and sublime way. Everyone who ever was madly and desperately in love and for some reasons could not be with the object of their longing should appreciate this film. Speaking of making Dreams, Ingmar Bergman comments, "By this time Harriet (Andersson) and I had terminated our relationship, and we were both feeling quite sad. Our sadness weighs down the film". Bergman regulars Harriet Andersson and Eva Dahlbeck (both will play in the same year's Smiles of a Summer Night, a very successful and sparkling Bergman's comedy) portray two women, the owner of a model agency, Doris (Dahlbeck) and her top model, Susanne (Andersson). A major figure in Ingmar Bergman's films of the 1950s, Eva Dahlbeck was stunning - an elegant, poised, sophisticated classical blonde beauty with high intelligence and the talents in acting and writing.

Harriet Andersson was discovered at the age of 20 by Ingmar Bergman who made especially for her screen debut the film "Summer with Monica". Extraordinary and versatile as an actress, her roles ranged from the naive young girls with erotic charisma to the young woman losing her grip with reality in Through a glass darkly (1962) to the fearless breakthrough performance as a dying woman in Cries and Whispers. In Dreams, she is absolutely charming. Camera loved her - sexy, sweet, and innocent, she lit the screen in her every scene.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
An Essay on Marriage and Passion., 25 March 2001
10/10
Author: filmbuff101 from Toronto, Canada

This film talks to all of those concerns that each of us has to face, at one time or another, in our relationships. I cannot put into words what is depicted in this film... but I can say that anyone that appreciates the perversity of Eyes Wide Shut or Husbands and Wives (in how they treat the subject of marriage/commitment/relationships) should enjoy this film. In fact, I wouldn't doubt that this is the original and the best film to tackle the subject.

The subject matter is presented in a somewhat tragic sense, but I think the film is rather uplifting in its treatment when it is considered from beginning to end. The simplicity of the presentation also leaves the viewer with the sense that this is a very poetic film.

I highly recommend this film, especially for those who are sufficiently ancient to have suffered enough in love to understand its (love's) beauty.

Does that sound pathetic or what? But I think it's true.

Enjoy.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
not bad at all, but certainly not great, 6 January 2006
6/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

This is a minor Bergman vehicle with some excellent acting, cinematography, etc. but nothing especially memorable about it to make it stand out from the crowd. The film is a story the parallels two lives--the older and more worldly photographer and her younger and more naive model. Through the course of the movie, both learn about love and relationships--particularly the older woman who learns to grown up and accept that an old relationship is over--and should be. The younger lady, in contrast, seems to be pretty much the silly girl she was at the beginning of the film. I think this is certainly meant to be a comment about age and wisdom.

While you may enjoy the film, there are certainly other Bergman films that are far more interesting, such as Wild Strawberries, The 7th Sign, Monika and Autumn Sonata, just to name a few.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
how much is dream and how much is reality, Bergman asks in this infidelity drama, 21 February 2008
8/10
Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

Ingmar Bergman making a film with characters in a daze as to what to make of their indiscretions in their affairs with men, what a surprise! Maybe there's too much sarcasm in that sentence, and perhaps for the period Bergman was working in (pre Seventh Seal) it's a little too close to a target to make. Bergman was the best at it, so it's not a knock: Dreams is another in one of his probing examinations, however in a manner that almost suggests he wasn't putting as much time and effort into the script as usual (in an interview he said he didn't consider it very highly in his oeuvre, and had some bad memories of his time with Harriet Andersson with their personal relationship, coincidentally her character has a rough break-up early in the picture). But saying that Bergman wasn't putting *as much* time and effort is suffice to say that he still makes it very intriguing, very entertaining (in that suffocating-dramatic Bergman sense where you can feel all humanity sucking out of the room and back in again with every beat in some scenes), and with a take on the sexes that allows for some probing hard to see in other movies.

We're given two women who work in the fashion photography profession, one a model (Andersson) and the other a producer/director type (Eva Dahlbeck). At the start we get right into a claustrophobic sense of unease for these girls set right by the tone of a man in the room- a fat man tapping his fingers while waiting for a shot to set up, and then once again on another one. Tension spills out in the dressing room, the engagement off between Andersson and her fiancée. Meanwhile, Dahlbeck calls her lover who can't come to the phone for long. After this Bergman starts to play a sort of trick on the viewer: what happens to these women with their respective men, is it dream or reality? Andersson's situation is that she's looking at dresses through the outside windows, and an old man (Gunnar Bjornstrand, with a nice old-man beard that isn't too shabby) offers to buy her the dress, jewelry, whatever she wants. To display the generational gap she asks for chocolate with whipped cream and- as something I thought I'd never see in a Bergman film- a rollicking trip to the amusement park to ride rollercoasters and shift through a haunted house.

This all seems to be leading to a note that suddenly becomes all the more clear, and I wondered "what gives?" if this was Bergman presenting dreams. Perhaps he means in the more fragmentary sense of "well, these women have dreams of some men, but... these aren't them". This leads to Dahlbeck's scenes which are a good, sharp contrast to Andersson's. With the latter there's some blocks where the two don't talk (she puts on a record that spins some cool jazz as the two dance a little and have a silent-movie repore with champagne), and for the former it's what some fans of the late Swedish filmmaker love more than anything: characters in personal agony over not realizing a personal connection, through lots and lots of dialog. What's impressive here isn't so much the performances per-say, which are a little cold, but how much restraint Bergman has with the camera as this situation with Dahlbeck's cold professional (she fires Andersson at one point for being late with the old man) turns into a fool-hearty tug-of-war of emotions between an equally cold wife of Dahlbeck's lover. If there is any one juicy section in Dreams, and not counting specific scenes like when Dahlbeck has her head out the window of the train (which is very beautifully executed), it's this one.

Somehow Bergman pulls out a semi-happy ending, if not without a bit of a coda as to what may happen with these still emotionally entangled souls. If only the structure somehow was worked out a little better (I'm not sure how I could criticize it more than that- even a flaw from a genius is still a genius move, if that make sense) it would be a great film. As it stands there's a lot of greatness in the film, only to feel very slightly like an excellent minor work. Still, stay tuned for little winks to the audience, like a rare Hitchcock type cameo (strange considering Bergman's opinion of the director), or a mention of the last time Bjornstrand's lonely rich old man saw a movie- 1918- which is Bergman's year of birth. 8.5/10

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
simply great, 23 January 2008
10/10
Author: praecept0r from NY, USA (mostly)

This is a "minor" Bergman's work indeed, nevertheless a great piece of cinema, scene after scene after scene. And if you belong to those who would rather watch Bergman than some Hollywood trash, and somehow missed this work, then yet another great one hour twenty minutes await you. Love is a timeless subject, and this movie will always have its small audience. And for this type of viewer a review that dissects it all is not necessary. Other folks should simply move on and watch something else that fits their intellectual and spiritual capacities.

By the way, the rating of 'Dreams' = the rating of 'Beowolf'. Such is a sad and pathetic state of human condition.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Dated Sentimental Lives of Two Women, 20 February 2007
6/10
Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In Stockholm, the fashion photographer Susanne Frank (Eva Dahlbeck) misses her married lover Henrik Lobelius (Ulf Palme) that lives in Gothenburg with his wife and children, and the naive twenty years old model Doris (Harriet Andersson) has a troubled relationship with her boy friend Palle Palt (Sven Lindberg). Susanne schedules a session of photo shoots in Gothenburg with Doris, and once there, she calls Henrik for an encounter. Meanwhile, Doris meets an elegant middle age gentleman on the street, the Consul Otto Sönderby (Gunnar Björnstrand), who buys expensive gifts for her: a dress, a pair of Italian gloves and valuable pearl necklace. They spend the afternoon together in an amusement park and later they go to Otto's mansion, where they are interrupted by his wicked daughter Marianne (Kerstin Hedeby-Pawlo). Susanne has a love affair with Henrik in her room, but they are interrupted by his cynical wife. The incidents in these encounters affect their perspective of love.

"Kvinnodröm" is one of the minor movies of Bergman in spite of not being a bad film. The sentimental story is too dated in the present days: the naive attitude of Doris with Otto is very silly, and the situation of Susanne is typical of the 40's and 50's, with a woman "dying" of non-corresponded or impossible love. The cinematography, as usual, is amazing, and I particularly liked very much the scene with Eva Dahlbeck split between light and shadow in the train to Gothenburg. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Sonhos de Mulheres" ("Dreams of Women")

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
My brief review of the film, 14 May 2005
Author: sol- from Perth, Australia

A very minor Bergman work, the film has traces of his style, especially in the first few scenes with quick edits and close-ups to draw attention to detail, as well as a well-filmed roller coaster ride. However, the screenplay does not match the quality of the directing, with basically two stories that do not gel all that well together. What the film is meant to be a study of is never clearly focused, with themes of desire as well as women's liberation both present. The middle section of the film dragged a little too, but still it is interesting to see such an early piece of work from Bergman. It is not much compared to what would later come in his career, but the film has enough interesting elements to certainly make it worth a look.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
2 Women, 26 July 2005
7/10
Author: mockturtle from New York

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I agree with another comment here that the two stories do not have the same thematic confluence that is found in Bergman's later and more complex work. There is much to enjoy nonetheless, especially the always remarkable Gunnar Bjornstrand. Both stories end with one woman telling another woman more about herself than she would like to know and a man stands impotently at a window. Perhaps the main thing that keeps it from equaling his later works is that he did not hit upon a believable way to show the younger woman evolving. Instead she is revealed to us to be what the feral daughter of her elderly would-be patron calls her: an imbecile and borderline prostitute. At the end of the film the older woman has regained whatever sympathy the actress playing her Eva Dahlbeck and Bergman have expertly lost her and has grown as a person. The same cannot be said for Harriett Andersson's character. It is still quite an enjoyable minor film and a successful stepping stone. This film was made right on the cusp of his years when he made one masterpiece after another.

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