Eva Dahlbeck

In Sweden at the turn of the century, members of the upper class and their servants find themselves in a romantic tangle that they try to work out amidst jealousy and heartbreak.

A young mute woman, living in a small village, is expecting a baby. Her husband is writing a novel at the same time and using the villagers as his characters. In the creative process, reality and imagination are constantly intertwined.

When the famous cellist Jarl Kulle bribes a critic to write his biography, the critic decides to blackmail him with the intimate details gleaned from the many women in his life.

Mai Zetterling’s feature debut weaves together the lives of three women, each reflecting on their personal and sexual lives as they arrive at a maternity ward in the summer of 1914. Through flashbacks, fragments of their lives and loves are retold – incestuous love, masochistic love, lesbian love, destructive love. The film caused some upset at Cannes but received overwhelmingly positive reviews.