Miss Julie

With at least a half-dozen European film festivals distributing awards each year, even the boast of a "grand prize" is likely to met a jaded response. This accolade, which Miss Julie won at Cannes in 1951, however, rightly draws attention to a film which has received far less notice in this country than it deserves. The distinction of Miss Julie is not its evocation of Strindberg's somber drama, but an artistry in direction and camera-work which makes the film something of a technical masterpiece.

Miss Julie displays far more effectively the genius of director Alf Sjoberg than that of Strindberg, for the visual effects threaten to swallow the story itself. Although the script changes barley a line of the play, the film projects the drama on an infinitely broader canvas, interpolating speeches with artful flashbacks. As a result, Miss Julie dispels much of the tautness and unity of the play and frequently accentuates its dated melodrama. Whether a less imaginative transcription of Miss Julie would hold much interest for modern audiences is questionable, however. The place of Strindberg's picture of tormented souls in a transitional society is more secure in theatre history than in theatre repertoire. If, therefore, the film seems to overburden the story and subordinate it to technical artistry, there is some justification.

The visual richness of Miss Julie, however, is extraordinary, with striking contrasts of light and shadow and dramatic composition of scenes. From intriguing perspectives, the camera roams over the manor-house grounds in the half-light of a Swedish Midsummer Eve and moves gracefully into the past of the flashbacks or the future of Miss Julie's fancies. The absence of dialogue in many of these sequences, accompanied by the words of a single character, accentuates the pictorial emphasis of the film. Occasionally the striving for dramatic effect without dialogue leads to ludicrous exaggeration, as when the death of Miss Julie's mother is underscored by a black-bordered photograph, lighted candles, and the strains of Chopin's funeral march. Although the symbolism throughout the film is elementary, however, each scene has the careful composition of a painting. As a result, Miss Julie has a visual eloquence far more moving than the stilted themes of Strindberg's plot.

The lapses of subtlety in the direction find some counterparts in the acting, which American audiences may find a bit intense. This is particularly true of the brooding presence of Miss Julie's mother, a Strindbergian woman who drives her husband to ruin and warps here daughter's mind. Ulf Palme is convincing, however, as Miss Julie's seducer, and Anita Bjork's Miss Julie is superb, alternately imperious and pitiful as the events of the Midsummer Eve drive her to suicide. Her beauty and performance alone are well worth a trip to the Brattle. R.E. OLDENBURG