Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #42 (tied with Panter Panchali, Some Like It Hot, Pierrot Le Fou, Playtime and Close-Up)
Just as it can be tricky to keep the flame on a candle lit for an extended period of time, so it is that attempting to keep romantic connections that just aren't clicking going is a similarly futile effort that'll just hurt both parties in the long term despite seeming like an easy band-aid to the whole predicament in the short time. This isn't really an all that complex solution, but it's one that many don't want to embrace since it'll mean they'll experience endless amounts of despair stemming from the end of a relationship they hold near and dear. It's a tough situation to be in and it appears Gertrud, the star of, well, Gertrud, has decided to go for the quick option and just cut things off right away.
For Gertrud (Nina Pens Rode), life with her husband Gustav Kanning (Bendt Rothe) has been far from a constant walk down a bed of roses. Even with his newfound political aspirations in hand, Gertrud finds their relationship to be crumbling and pointless to continue, especially since she's been seeing a younger fellow, Erland Jansson (Baard Owe), with whom she feels far more alive and prosperous around. But the story does not just end with her running off into the sunset happy with her new fling, instead, the ensuing film concentrates on Gertrud trying to find a human connection in a world full of men who just can't seem to create that with her.
There is a wistful atmosphere in Gertrud, one that contemplates the past and the future with equal measures of hopelessness. Our titular lead character interacts with lovers both new and old, and through these extended dialogue exchanges, we discover just how much she desires to feel truly alive from her interactions with another human being, something to make her life a more bearable existence. Director Carl Theodore Dryer's decision to shoot the film in black-and-white emphasizes this somber tone and aids the script in giving Gertrud as a film a dour visual aesthetic to match the mood of the script.
Frequently utilizing long takes similarly allows the solemn mood of the piece to be cemented, as you get to let the palpable sadness found in Gertrud's interactions with the men around her sink in instead of it being potentially undercut by a quick cut or odd editing choice. Gertrud certainly can be quite impressive in spots with the way it utilizes a dour atmosphere to examine its lead characters inner turmoil but I must say the movie as a whole frequently left me cold like an icebox, due to some unorthodox choices with the way dialogue is delivered and filmed that destabilizes the emotional effects the movie is going for.
For much of the movie's dialogue, Gertrud and the other characters looked off-screen, away from the other individual they're talking to in a way that's supposed to visually evoke the idea of the two human beings being so separated from each other emotionally they can no longer look at one another. However, this specific way of the actors delivering their lines, combined with some of the line deliveries, is less dramatically involving and comes off more like they're reading their lines off of nearby cue cards. This is a movie heavily reliant on dialogue and they really needed to make the lines these characters say involving for it to work, and unfortunately. Gertrud misses the mark here.
Still, the actors do give off some strong acting in the physical department under the direction of Carl Theodore Dryer, especially Nina Pens Rode in the lead role that allows her to embody the very essence of tragedy. I wish so much of her key monologue sequences weren't undercut by weird dialogue delivery and framing choices, but at least she does solid work when she can. Despite working with some interesting ideas in the realm of remorse and past regrets being intertwined with the future, Gertrud is just not as dramatically engaging as it could have been.
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