Bergman - Revisited_Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas afton) - 1953

If the power of a film starts affecting a thought process, you are probably watching a Bergman work.
Sawdust and Tinsel (Swedish: Gycklarnas afton,- 'Sunset of a Clown') is a 1953 Swedish melancholic and fatalistic 13th film by Ingmar Bergman

Bergman spins a disturbingly painful yarn of an aging owner of a small traveling circus who leaves his wife for a young performer in his troupe but later tries to regain his lost family. In today’s world the plot appears unpleasantly masochistic. This is a dark and unpleasant story of the harshness of life, the cruelty of human beings, of losers, of hopeless people, of people without any outlook of life, of peoples’ abhorrence towards others but still trapped with each other, of cruel people disgracing other human beings - reaching the lowest of life and not having enough courage to end their existence. You go on existing without thinking how bleak or low your life can be. “It is pity, people are obliged to live”. Life is a circus.

The work digs into the human nature where relationship is concerned. It examines human anxiety, infidelity, egocentrism, despair, agony, wretchedness and emotional distress,

Human relationships aren't always wonderful; they are strained for one reason or the other and are only to some extent repaired. Nevertheless we continue unwittingly to strive and make clowns of ourselves, (reminiscence of ‘Send in The Clowns’ – a must listen Frank Sinatra’s version song). Sometimes you almost think that Bergman thought that love never does work

The Film reminds of Fellini’s La Strada. However Bergman here mercilessly shreds the characters’ dreams and illusions and shows the world as a circus, as a theatre stage and that despite the costumes and make ups – people at large have their emotions exposed.

The humiliation of the clown, seeing his wife bathing naked with and in front of a regiment of soldiers, he carrying his wife across, was nothing short of a nightmare and reminded one of a Fellini Film.

All dignity and pride are lost because of his wife’s action. Since the job of a clown is to make people laugh, he achieved this feat not by jest but by disgrace!



This is followed by scenes of further humiliation and insult of the circus owner by the stage Director.

While advertising themselves in the village square, they envisage the fascist attitude of the Police (people’s continuous laughter instead of protesting).

The ringmaster is rejected by his first wife while his mistress is seduced and dumped by the stage actor.

Humiliation after humiliation follows ending in the sound beating of the ringleader by the actor while the audience claps at the circus of life. There is an absence of feel good factor where a character sums up that the world is full of misery, lice and diseases.

Bergman had a non-existence belief in God and that existence itself had very little to offer to contradict that view. There is no shortage of sadness and sorrow.

Undeniably, none of us are in fact truly happy; nonetheless we constantly look for for some sort of contentment and joy. You make a decision, and the effect is outside your control. We keep on striving for things beyond our reach other than what we are destined for. Life is a long, painful journey that will never find a definitive purpose.

Bergman’s film is not about anything, but everything.