Swedish actress turned writer Birgit Tengroth’s short stories are converted to film by Ingmar Bergman to great effect.

After an opening title sequence reminiscent of Hitchcock, the film sews together tender, frail vignettes of men and women in and out of various psychosexual relationships that build upon one another to create a potent vision of passion, jealousy, and disillusionment.

Fans of both Jim Jarmusch and Woody Allen will see a clear line of influence running from this early Bergman film to their most important works.

Case in point: I couldn’t help noticing a similarity between an early scene of the damaged ballet dancer Rut and her unstable husband Bertil in THIRST and a scene in Jarmusch’s MYSTERY TRAIN involving a young Japanese couple; she playfully pantomimes, as he broods. And of course Woody Allen’s more mature work like ANOTHER WOMAN and HUSBANDS AND WIVES are full-bodied testimonials.

The title alone, THIRST, foreshadows a seminal moment in Bergman’s use of symbolism in CRIES AND WHISPERS: the wrenching scene of Agnes awakening in pain, dying of thirst.