Fängelse [Prison] … is a highly significant work in many ways…. [It] has all the marks of a key work in his career, wildly bundling together any number of themes which are to recur later and, it seems, just had to find expression at this time in some form. Moreover, it is the first of Bergman's films which demonstrates any real desire (or possibly, since we know little of the circumstances in which the early films were made, any real freedom) to experiment with the medium, to use it positively as a means of expression in itself, rather than merely recording with competence but no special aptitude. In Fängelse already Bergman is reaching out towards the highly personal style of his later work, integrating the rather faded studio romanticism (derived, apparently, from an enthusiastic study of the works of Carné) which marked his earliest films and the...