Ingeborg Holm

Ingeborg Holm
Directed by	Victor Sjöström
Written by	Nils Krok (also play) Victor Sjöström
Starring	Hilda Borgström
Cinematography	Henrik Jaenzon
Release date(s)	27 October 1913
Running time	96 min.
Country	Sweden
Language	Silent film

Ingeborg Holm (English: Margaret Day) is a 1913 Swedish social drama film directed by Victor Sjöström, based on a 1906 play by Nils Krok. It has been called "the first realistic feature film".^[1] It caused great debate in Sweden about social security, which led to changes in the poorhouse laws. It is said to be based on a true story.^[2]

Synopsis

Sven Holm and his wife Ingeborg are happily married with three children, and are about to open a shop in Stockholm. They open the shop, but Sven contracts tuberculosis and dies. Ingeborg initially tries to run the shop by herself, but when she fails, she turns to the poorhouse for help. The poorhouse denies her assistance but offers her a cleaning job. She has to sell the shop, her house, and put the children in an orphanage.

After some time, Ingeborg reads in a letter that one of the children is sick. The poorhouse can't finance a visit, but the determined Ingeborg escapes at night and, after being chased by police, gets to see the child. When she returns to the poorhouse, the manager is furious that they must pay a fine for the trouble she caused.

Later on, Ingeborg is offered a chance to see her youngest daughter, this time with the poorhouse's approval. When the child doesn't recognize her, she is devastated. She tries to make a doll from her scarf and play with it, but the daughter cries and turns to the foster mother.

This hits Ingeborg so hard that she loses her sanity. She spends several years in a mental hospital, holding the doll as if it were her daughter. Twelve years later, her oldest son, Erik, now a sailor, visits her. He becomes desperate when the mother doesn't recognize him—but when he gives her a photograph of herself as young, with the text "To Erik from mother," her sanity returns. She has her son back, who can support her.

Cast

• Hilda Borgström as Ingeborg Holm
• Aron Lindgren as Sven Holm / Erik Holm as an adult
• Erik Lindholm as Employee in Shop
• Georg Grönroos as Poorhouse Superintendent
• William Larsson as Police Officer
• Richard Lund as Doctor
• Carl Barcklind as House Doctor
• Bertil Malmstedt as Erik Holm as a child

References

1. ^ Atrium Förlag (in Swedish)
2. ^ Summary at Svenskfilmdatabas.se (in Swedich) Swedish Film Institute

External links

• Ingeborg Holm at the Internet Movie Database
• Ingeborg Holm at the Swedish Film Database
• Ingmar Bergman on Ingeborg Holm and other films by Sjöström