Monica Weinzierl

Andersson is always complaining about high taxes and dreams about a world with no taxes.

A fractured portrait of desire and isolation, following a failing marriage and parallel stories of emotional entrapment as memories surface during a train journey through postwar Europe. Told through flashbacks and multiple narrative threads, the film signals Ingmar Bergman’s emerging mature style.

Young Anna Rydell comes to a boarding-school for girls. She is very shy and the other girls don't really try to get to know her. The French teacher Martin Andreasson, who Anna falls in love with, lives at the boarding-school with his wheel chair-bound wife. Her handicap has made her depressed and Martin finds it hard to love her like he used to do.

Harriet and Frank Allard have been married for many years. Almost twenty years ago, Harriet had a love affair with a colleague of Frank's, Claes von Klitzow, who made her pregnant. She had a son, Christer, whom Frank thinks that he is the father of. One day, Christer reveals that he is going to marry von Klitzow's daughter Louise. Harriet becomes upset but what will she do? Try to stop the marriage by telling the truth - which would endanger her marriage with Frank - or keep silent, which would mean that two half-siblings married?

Imber has a child with the dubious fiancé Erland. He is destructive and his unhealthy lifestyle subjects his family to starvation and the death of their child. Imber falls in love with Arne and a settlement between Arne and Erland unfolds.