Sarabande

(please note - this review refers to the theatrical release, not the TV version) Veteran master Ingmar Bergman releases what he claims is his final movie. In a world dominated by blockbusters, even with a sprinkling of aspiring auteurs and masterful experimenters such as von Trier, Bergman fulfils his iconic role as setting a gold standard in cinema. For many art-house lovers, Bergman portrays what film can and should do when it is at the height of its power as an art form.

Having said that it seems a strange twist of fate to be viewing Saraband, as I did, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival where it is up for the Standard Life 'audience award', along with mainstream crowd-pleasers. As I cast my vote I felt it was almost a desecration for such a movie to be entered in a popularity poll, however discerning the audience. There are a number of serious works at the Festival and they should be judged by an independent panel of experts - there is a discussion afoot to create a new award along these lines - otherwise it is like comparing Beethoven with the Beatles.

Saraband, in true Bergman tradition, wrestles with human relationships, using a slow pace, pointed dialogue, and heavy use of symbolism to explore the psychological states of the characters. Bergman encourages young directors not to direct any film that does not have a "message," but to wait until one comes along that does, yet admits himself that he is not always sure of the message of some of his films.

We are never in any doubt that this film has much point to it, even if the point is not exactly clear. It opens with the slow soulful 'saraband', of Bach's 5th unaccompanied cello suite. 'Sarabande' is one of the movements from the suite, a slow and, compared to the others, a relatively easy piece to play. Marianne (Liv Ullman), is both narrator (at the beginning and end of the film) and principal protagonist. As she walks through the rooms of a house the doors close behind her. A cuckoo clock strikes. She is in the later part of her life. She fleetingly touches the keys of a piano, as if to say she still, even in solitude, has her inner music. Her presence is explained as she goes to the veranda and we find she is visiting an ex-husband, someone who was unfaithful to her many years ago. The colours are crisp and sharp. Of all the members of her family, Marianne is perhaps the clearest of mind and most well-balanced, but it is the extended interaction (with very little action) between the main players that give us insights into the beauty of being elderly, at least for someone like Marianne who handles it well. Yet even she is filled with sadness for others.

Later chapters of the film focus on her step-grand-daughter. Karin is a cellist, living with a rather overprotective (if that's not too mild a word) father, also a musician. She has to face a difficult choice, involving her personal loyalties, her loyalty to herself and ability as a gifted young cellist, and the need to extricate herself from a situation that is bad for her but will be bad for her father if she does.

The symbolism of the title and music neatly metaphors the decisions before her. A saraband is also a two-person dance. The suggestion, made at one point, of playing it by two people alternating is essentially a frivolous one, which serious musicians would probably reject. That the Suite for Unaccompanied Cello should not be played as a duet, even with the younger person playing the 'easier part' as Karin's father suggests, is an unobtrusive symbol reminding us, in the film's later loaded context, that there are some lines that an older and younger person should never cross together.

Saraband shows how old age can tempt us to wisdom or its opposite.

With Saraband, writer/filmmaker Ingmar Bergman closes the book, so to speak, on his life's work. It's a sequel, which could have been thwarting (why go back and do the same thing over again, one could ask). But it is the kind of sequel that bears significance. Bergman brings back two actors/friends he's worked with numerous times, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, and uses their characters from his film/TV series Scenes from a Marriage for a higher purpose than to rake in the bucks. He's out to bring some closure to their relationship, however not entirely based on nostalgia. This time two other characters in the film, new ones, become the centerpiece of the story. As with the majority of his works, he finds two key assets that work to his advantage behind his own personal attachment to the project- the camera/lighting, and the cast.

It may be too easy to compare and contrast this film and the series. But it is of interest if only for curiosity sake. There is something of note that revealed to one how the actual cinematography can evolve properly or at least in a fashion that is not off-putting. This time around (unlike Sven Nykvist's perfect work on 'Marriage', a kind of pre-Dogma 95 style to use the camera with the story), Bergman decided to make the film for television (his on occasion work aside from theatre for the past twenty years since Fanny and Alexander) and also decided to implement digital photography. There are five cinematographers, and it's too tedious to pick out if which one did what properly or who lit this right and so on. But that in Saraband, however, doesn't suffer by way of the digital perspective. If anything, it serves its purpose fully by keeping the naturalistic mood. Some scenes are seen with as clear an eye as ever for Bergman. Others that may be a little more obscured by darkness are affecting psychologically in a way. Bergman's preference is to look at faces and expressions, without much to obscure the actors.

What is of surprise is that Bergman injects two things that he intentionally kept out of 'Scenes'- inner visions (actually shown, not just spoken and felt by the actors), and music. In at least a couple of scenes, to add an intensity and a sense of the surreal, we see what Karina sees in some key moments. She describes an ugly incident with her father. She runs through the woods. When something very ugly occurs, it happens off screen, with a pause given in-between one scream. Needless to say it was tremendously moving. The other involved an enormous, involving fantasy. She's just been told information by her grandfather Johan that is crucial for her decision towards the end. When she sits on the stairs, the camera suddenly cuts to pull back on her on a chair, against a white background, and the camera pulls back further and further at a quick pace. This kind of technique I could feel as if I've seen in maybe a dozen films. When Bergman does this, after such a hopeful scene for Karina, it is a useful technique. Whatever the intention, it's far greater a grab then in a standard action film. Those are the two kinds of scenes/images that are very emotional and immediate on a first viewing.

Ullmann and Josephson, who portrayed Marianne and Johan thirty years ago, never lose their ability to play off each other as actors. The focal point this time is with Henrik and Karina though, so the performances by Ahlstedt and especially Dufvenius for Bergman had to be even more affecting than those of the observers. Ahlstedt's Henrik is a tricky sort to empathize with perhaps: can an audience be with him when the drama unfolds with his daughter? Turns out he brings the humanity in all its darkness and seemingly complex inner-damnation as one of Bergman's most memorable characters. His conflicts with his father and daughter stem from a number of elements, but the key one is very identifiable- death of the one you've loved the most. How can change occur? This is a question posed as well for Karina, and in Ahlstedt playing her she already shows enough talent and gusto to take on stronger roles in the future. At first sight, I thought she might have been over-hitting her mark, or that Bergman was over-directing. This was not the case, and in the subtle moments she revealed herself on the level of one of Bergman's 'ladies' (i.e. Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, and Harriet Anderson).

As the closure, what does Bergman do? He does something rather wise to weave the story of the father and daughter together with the continuing story of Johan and Marianne with an equal resonance and emotional weight. The younger two find their own ends to the means, and I would not dare reveal how and why. But for Marianne Bergman answers a question that was asked if not out-right then with all of the action and tension and buildups and payoffs in 'Marriage'. Does a person know what emotion is, or what it feels like? In the final scene (to put it mildly), he and Ullmann answer it in an approach that practically had me in tears. This would not mark the first time this has happened while viewing a Bergman film, yet the fact that this is the last gave me a cleansing feeling, of the greatest cathartic release with a thoughtful film.

If it's one of the key objectives for a filmmaker in drama and tragedy to reveal it as truthfully as possible, and bring us with the character(s) full-circle, Ingmar Bergman's pulled it off wonderfully. Saraband is one of the crucial swan songs in film history (for my money, and will soon find its way to American theaters (digital projectors more or less likely). A++

Originally shot for television in high definition video, Ingmar Bergman's latest film, Saraband, is about the reunion of a husband and wife after thirty years of divorce and separation. Divided into ten segments plus a prologue and epilogue, the title is derived from a minuet-like dance for two people commonly performed at court during the 17th and 18th centuries. Like the dance, there are never more than two people on screen at any one time and the film is almost all conversation with bits of classical music. The film is vintage Bergman with revealing close-ups, emotionally intense dialogue, an old-fashioned style of film-making, and a surfeit of bitterness about the human condition.

Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson, the original screen couple from Bergman's 1973 film Scenes of a Marriage, reunite in his summer home for their first face to face contact since their breakup. Johan has become very wealthy as a result of an inheritance. Marianne is a lawyer and they have two daughters from their failed marriage: Sara who is married to a prominent lawyer and lives in Australia and Martha who is in a mental institution and does not recognize her mother. Johan is surprised by his ex-wife's visit but they still hold hands and try to remember the good things about the past, though Johan's interest seems to be minimal. Living nearby are Henrik (Borje Ahlstedt), Johan's son from a second marriage and his daughter Karin (Julia Dufvenius), a promising young cellist. Henrik and Karin have an uncomfortably strong attachment and mutual need as a result of the recent death of Anna, Henrik's wife who was deeply loved.

Henrik is training his daughter in the cello to prepare her for an audition at the local conservatory but has to turn to Johan for financial support who uses the occasion to humiliate him. Karin is contemplating going to Europe to work for an orchestra but is afraid of the consequences for Henrik if she leaves. Relationships between the family are strained, seemingly beyond repair and their world is filled with childish resentments and regrets. Karin resents her father for suffocating her emotionally. Marianne still resents Johan for his unfaithfulness. Henrik resents his father for -- not being a father. Johan resents Henrik for not being the son he wanted. No one can see beyond their ego to feel the needs and wants of others. The emotional pain is real but I found the end result to be facile and unconvincing.

Saraband has received high praise as a "lacerating examination of life's conundrums that is exhilarating in its fearlessness and its command", and an "affective, touching, and ultimately highly affirming picture of familial turmoil and the curative, as well as destructive, powers of love." But what I ask is this - What new insights do we gain about the human condition from witnessing a family go at each other with unbridled ruthlessness? In offering his audience the latest generation of "emotional illiterates", Bergman lets us see the clawing and fighting but hides the life-affirming reality that people are capable of transcending their limitations.

In Saraband, there is no self- reflection, responsibility, or hint that people can change with the passage of time. His characters only seem to have been able to refine their capacity for collecting grievances. When Henrik is suffering, no one talks about him, goes to visit him, or seems in the least concerned. Is this the way Bergman after all these years sees human relationships? Is this the legacy he wants to leave us? Despite its considerable strengths, Sourband (sic) is a bitter and despairing film that left a bad taste in my mouth.

When I was a teenager, I watched "Scenes from a Marriage" which was shown on British Television during the early seventies. I became engrossed, as the unrelenting camera stared and recorded the break-up of a doomed relationship. The characters seemed hell-bent on this destruction despite themselves. It was a fascinating, harrowing series and I enjoyed it. I must have done, because I never forgot the impression it gave me. Luckily the BBC kept the original soundtrack, and the show was sent using subtitles. The drama offered in those foreign tongued, angry, desperate conversations was of the highest quality.

Now, over 30 years later, I am in my living room once more watching Johan and Marianne. Only this time I don't need subtitles, as I have since learnt Swedish. :-)

Bergman weaves a tale of vindictive dependence and of a young girl's decision to finally make her own way in life - despite some very powerful forces preventing such a move.

Marianne decides to seek out Johan, meets him and becomes involved in the tug of war over his grand-daughter's future with the girl's father, Johan's depressed son Henrik (wonderfully played by Börje Ahlstedt).

A quiet, intensive film. With an important, pivotal roll for the grand-daughter Karin played by Julia Dufvenius.

Bergman should be proud of this. It's a fine epilogue to a marvelous career in cinema and story-telling.

Bravo!

For many years "The Seventh Seal" has not only been my favorite Bergman film, but my all-time list topper. Although others have since moved into that place, Bergman's genius as a probing and revelatory filmmaker continue to astound and reward me.

"Saraband" for me is about as good as he gets...and that's high praise. Here the human soul in anguish is laid bare in all its honest need...a thwarted one...for love and understanding. A once married couple, Marianne and Johann (brilliantly portrayed by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson) do their saraband even after 30 years apart. And like that dance, in its repetitive themes, their relationship as well as that of Johann's son and granddaughter form a kind of tragic rondo, sadly and inexorably replicated. Henrik, the 61 year old son (portrayed with amazing profoundity by Borje Ahlstedt) cannot extricate himself from the slings and arrows aimed at him continually by his father. The one character, now dead, who serves as a graceful inspiration to them all is Henrik's wife and his daughter, Karin's mother...Anna. We see her beautiful face in a photographic portrait, but her loving presence in their memory is so strong it becomes a kind of living influence. Karin, played by the stunning Julia Dufvenius, is also the victim of the family dynamic and forms the important fourth in this saraband of life and fate.