Review by valadas

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.