Saraband

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++

Another mesmerising expression of relationship, more acutely on a disturbing father/daughter pairing, but it's the craft of the actors moulding the directors words and wisdom that creates a near perfect marriage made in heaven - as so many of Bergman's films do, and as such, you'll struggle to pull your eyes and ears from the conversation.

After thirty years without seeing each other, Marianne (Liv Ulmann) has a strong need to visit Johan (Erland Josephson), who is living in an isolated house that belonged to his grandparents after inheriting a fortune from a distant aunt. In the nearby cottage, Johan's son from another marriage, Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt), is living with his daughter Karin (Julia Dufvenious), after the death of his beloved wife Anna. Henrik is giving cello lessons to Karin to be admitted into a European music school and has an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Along the autumn, Marianne is involved in the troubled relationship between Johan and his son, and Henrik and his daughter.

In his last work as a director, Ingmar Bergman revisits the characters of 1973 "Scenes from a Marriage" thirty years older, with Marianne sharing the dramatic and complicated relationship of John's family. The first point that impresses in this movie is the always precise and careful direction of an 83 years old Ingmar Bergman, showing an amazing vitality and longevity in his career. I do not recall the last movie I have seen of Liv Ulmann, but this now senior actress is still fantastic. This theatrical movie is a great character study, as usual in Bergman's films, with excellent and emotional dialogs, and ends with many open issues. Why Johan and Henrik hate each other so deeply? What was written in the last page of Anna's farewell letter? I believe she knew that her husband was having an incestuous relationship with Karin. The unknown actress Julia Dufvenious is extremely beautiful and talented, and her contradictory character is also impressive. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Saraband"

Ingmar Bergman goes on trying to find the meaning of life and the world and what means sentiment after all. Do we love when we think we hate? What's going on in the deepness of human soul? What justifies our actions? Which truth commands human relations mainly family and marital ones? This quest is pursued by formal means and themes different of those used in some of his previous movies such as The Seventh Seal or Persona but the same interrogation is always there. A sexagenarian lady decides to pay a visit to her ex-husband whom she had not seen for more than 30 years. She will be then the spectator of a series of events involving his ex-husband, his son of a previous marriage and the latter's young daughter in a tempest of violent feelings and psychological outbursts against which her serenity and wisdom make an interesting counterpoint. There is also another character whose presence is overwhelming despite the fact that she is already dead when the movie begins: Anna the former wife of the ex-husband's son. She still lives in the heart and of the two men and the young girl with her words and deeds. The love-hate relationship between father and son and father and daughter is very intense. The scene where the character played by Erland Josephson yields one night to anguish and anxiety and seeks refuge in her ex-wife's bed ( without any sex being involved) is extremely moving. We are indeed in the presence of a masterpiece.

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.