Cara a cara

"Face to Face" exists mostly as a showcase for one of Ingmar Bergman's favorite actresses, Liv Ullmann, and she gives a tour de force performance. She plays Jenny Isaakson, a psychiatrist who can't help herself when her mental illness sends her teetering over the brink into a complete emotional breakdown. The film is unrelenting, comprised of one merciless scene after another in which the camera rests in extreme closeup on Ullmann's face and captures the anguish writ large there. It's a tough watch, but it's also morbidly fascinating. I've always been interested in studies about mental illness, and "Face to Face" is one of the most realistic I've seen in showing how such an illness manifests itself.

Ullmann was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in the year that Faye Dunaway won for "Network." The Academy had a tough decision on its hands that year. And Bergman also received a nomination for Best Director.

Grade: A

Face to face is another example of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's masterful direction in order to penetrate into his actors' psyche. Bergman's sole intention in his movies is to convey the emotions, the interaction between different personalities and how they swift in the film. He uses long uninterrupted takes in such effect that many times throughout the film someone could get carried away and find itself present in the room with the protagonists. It's like Sven Nykvist forgets the camera somewhere recording, but the action continues... Bergman's usual partners are present obviously in Face to Face. Aformentioned cinematographer Sven Nykvist (who by the way has won two Oscars for Bergman's "Fanny & Alexander" and "Cries and Whispers" and was nominated for "face to face", does again superb job. But in my opinion the film is worth viewing mostly for Liv Ullmann's extraordinary performance, mominated for an Oscar as well. There is nothing that I could add, Bergman fans will find the master here in peak form. I hope all film fans will one day discover Ingmar Bergman's cinema, it would be an unpreceded experience. Better late than never...

Hey, it's Bergman PLUS Liv Ullmann, the greatest actress on the planet, and she's playing a psychiatric doctor who is slowly but very surely going wholly bonkers. Scenes carry depth and anxiety and a sense that things can come apart even when things seem serene - and when it gains momentum near the end, it's a wonder to behold. What's not to love?

Actually, I will be critical of one scene - in the 2nd half of the film, Bergman puts Jenny, his protagonist, into a double-state (hey, why not when it's a psychological thing) as she is about to, and does, a suicide attempt and recovers in the hospital and then goes into dream states. Most of these dream scenes are effective in depicting a mind at battle with itself and the personal demons of old coming back in full force (two such scenes are when Jenny confronts her parents, a back and forth *true* Love/Hate scene that is staggering, and another where she is surrounded by her patients in a room, one of them her grandfather who says flat out he's afraid of dying, to which she responds 'Just count to ten, and if you're still alive... count to ten again', which is great).

However, there is a scene that is very heavy-handed to me - yes, even for Bergman - where he has his leading lady see herself in a casket, the casket is closed shut as she is yelling and banging on the door, and then the casket is set on fire as Outside Jenny laughs. To me, this just made me go "Really, Ingmar, you're gonna go there?" But that's nitpicking when in the midst of a master at work, and boyo-boy it is a master at a career peak - given a boost by Ullmann, who starts out pretty sweet and 'normal', and then her character goes through a traumatic event (an attempted rape), but we learn that this is not even what makes her go insane - far from it, that's just the icing on the Crazy Cake. As Bergman delves deep into this woman's psychosis, it reveals how harrowing it can get, but also, ultimately, how important it is to live and to try to find some semblance of peace. Love, ultimately, is the goal, to find some caring and harmony in life while we're here.

If nothing else, the scene where Ullmann finally unloads her personal and mental baggage on a bewildered but patient and understanding Erland Josephsson should've gotten her TEN Oscars by itself. I rarely say this, but God bless Liv Ullmann, and Dog bless Ingmar Bergman. ;)

Ingmar Bergman's films always had, or at least, most of them had, a very dark and almost horror-ish tone to them, particularly films such as "Persona" and "The Seventh Seal", both which I consider among the finest films ever made. It was no surprise that his two 'official' horror films - this one and the slightly superior "Hour of the Wolf", come across as being not only of the genre's finest, but also one of the scariest of all time. Liv Ullman gives a breathtaking performance of a psychiatrist who turns out to be just as crazy as the people she takes care of. We follow her as she is lost in the hellish labyrinth of her subconscious, and harassed by horrible demons she created herself. Meanwhile, on the outside world, her 'darker side' takes over, and her friend and co-worker, played by the great Erland Josephson, tries to save her. Ullman's gradual descent into insanity is jaw-dropping, and here she gives her most twisted, hysterical performances for the likes of Isabelle Adjani in "Possession" and Catherine Denueve in "Repulsion". For the acting and Bergman's superb direction alone the film manages to convey a sense of dread and fear unlike anything Hollywood had done to this point, and indeed, the film does make the majority of American horror films made at that time look stupid in comparison. Overall, 10/10. A masterpiece.

I saw this with friends when it was first released and twenty minutes after we had left the cinema we realized that no one had spoken. This is a masterful film with Liv Ullman's performance eclipsing any seen on screen. You feel the pain, the hurt and the confusion as you watch this woman's journey. A film for those who like intense, thought provoking and intelligent story telling.