This is Ingmar Bergman’s second movie, after Crisis. It’s still something you’d class as “early Bergman,” not nearly at the height of his powers — but it’s more nearly so than Crisis was.

The movie starts off with a sailor coming to town and looking for his old flame; but when he unexpectedly finds her, she’s broken down and doesn’t want to talk to him. How did we get here?

Well, let’s go back in time, to seven years ago, when this sailor was a youth on his dad’s ship. Which, spoiler alert, is not a happy ship. The dad kinda hates his son (who has a mild hunchback), but also seems to hate his life in general. He goes off to dance halls and gets drunk and cheats on his wife (and leaves his crew unable to do their salvage job).

At one dance hall, he falls for an exotic dancer, and he tells her he’s going blind and so he wants to run away with her to India (the only place India appears in the movie, despite the title). Toward this end, he brings her back to his family boat, which seems kinda awkward, given that his wife is still there; but the women are friendly enough, and the wife seems more resigned than anything else (and at one point talks about how she’s looking forward to her husband going blind, which is dark af).

But then the son becomes enamored with the dancer and takes her off to an abandoned windmill where — after she confesses to him that she’s been a sex worker, but also that she’s not interested in his dad — they make love romantically.

When the dad finds out, he’s mad, and tries to murder his son while he’s diving, and then runs away to his secret apartment. More drama ensues with the dad throwing himself out of a window to his near-death when the police come for him. Ultimately, the son decides he needs to ship out on another boat to get away from his fucked-up family dynamic, and the dancer goes back to dancing — but he promises he’ll come back for her.

Which brings us back to the present, and here he is. She’s gone back to sex work during the seven years while he was gone, turns out, and is apparently pretty miserable. But she doesn’t want to leave with him — fair enough, he’s basically a guy that she had a short, fucked-up relationship with many years ago, why would she? But he’s persistent, and finally wears her down. And just as in Crisis, we end with what is superficially a grand romantic moment, but with her face looking bleak and hopeless.

In another director’s hands, this could have been a big ol’ melodrama, but Bergman keeps it bleak and weird enough that it doesn’t quite feel like one. And visually, there are some very Bergman shots here — the movie opens with sailors standing around on the dock in silhouette; but his visual style is even more noticeable when the two lovers are going to the abandoned windmill.

This isn’t going to make any list of Bergman’s best movies, but honestly, it’s pretty good — it’s worth watching even if you’re not a Bergman completist.