Saraband

For Bergman devotees like me, any morsel tossed our way by the great master is a treat. Saraband is a good deal more than a morsel, but not the true masterpiece others are claiming. And it takes some investment in Bergman's biography and past works to truly appreciate its depth, I think.As has been pointed out, the film is a tribute to Bergman's late wife, Ingrid (not the actress) and his mourning for her; the film is dedicated to her, and the photograph of "Anna" that is lingered on lovingly by the characters throughout the film is actually a portrait of Ingrid. (Bergman made a short film--never released in the US--called "Karin's Face"--a tribute to his complicated relationship with his mother, where her photographic portrait is similarly examined by the film camera.)As with Fanny & Alexander, I was intrigued to see how Bergman quotes his past works and themes in this film. The Bach saraband that haunts the soundtrack is the same piece of music he used in Cries and Whispers, when the two estranged sisters temporaily make contact in a montage of carressing hands and faces (Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin), silent except for the lone cello of Bach's saraband.Marianne's institutionalized daughter echoes that of Ingrid (the actress) Bergman's character's in Autumn Sonata. The concluding Scene 10 in Saraband is titled Vargtimme (translated as The Hour Before Dawn)which is also the Swedish title of Bergman's 1968 film "Hour of the Wolf," which also begins and ends with Liv Ullmann speaking intimately to the camera (when she was pregnant with Bergman's daughter).As in The Passion of Anna and Cries and Whispers, a character's secrets are revealed in letters and diaries--things they could never say "face to face."It is a melancholy treat to see Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson together on screen again (much like seeing Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg reunited in Fellini's Intervista many decades later to watch their youthful selves in the famous Trevi Fountain scene in La Dolce Vita). I was reminded how much I've missed Ullmann's magnificent face, now wrinkled with age and experience, which has been absent from the movie screen for far too long.To me it's the film's themes of retrospection, regret, loss and becoming reconciled (or not) with one's past that touched me deeply, something the nearing-90 year-old Bergman is obviously engulfed by.There are other things that disturbed or at least distracted me in Saraband. I must say, as someone else pointed out here, I too was puzzled by the "bad math" of Johann and Marianne's history; their ages don't match up with their stated years married and apart. And maybe it's my American puritanical heritage raising its ugly head as I age, but do middle-aged men really sleep in the same bed with their adult daughters in Sweden? Yes, Dad sees Karin as a replacement for his lost wife, but such overt incestuous overtones are over-the-top and unnecessary.And I have never bought into Bergman's trite "crippled child" metaphor. Yes, we are all "institutionalized" in some way by our parents' actions or inactions, but doesn't he make that point without having to rely on such obvious symbols? Nevertheless, I was moved to tears in the epilogue when Marianne reveals that following her time with Johann and his family, she truly touched her instituionalized daughter [the crippled child metaphor] for the first time. It's Ullmann's performance that overcomes the contrivance.The other thing that makes this film outstanding is Bergman's continued reliance on close-ups--and his camera especially loves women's faces. Even without his now-ailing cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Bergman tells as much about the human condition in close-ups of human faces than all the combined dialogue or contrived metaphors of his and others' films combined.One of the few bonuses in this DVD is a "Making of..." documentary. It's intriguing to see how Bergman works with his actors and crew and we learn more about the film's conception in his discussions with them, especially in his recollection of a conversation he had with Erland Josphson that helped him cope with the loss of his wife. And it's interesting, too, to see how Bergman has adapted to the digital age--quite different from the earlier "Making of..." docs of his creation of Fanny & Alexander and earlier movies where film was the medium. And I was suprised to see that most of the outdoor scenes were created in the studio--convincingly so.Overall, not Bergman's best, but well worth the investment and a fitting capstone to an amazing career.

Liv Uhlman has been the most moving and the most subtle actor I have ever seen. In this film there is a question about a precious cello. If Bergman is a great director, then He has been fortunate to have an instrument such as Uhlman. The movements of her face are better than any plot.

We return to the couple from `Scenes From a Marriage' 30 years later. They haven't seeneach other in all that time. Marianne, still working as a lawyer, goes to visit Johan, nowliving off a rich inheritance in a house in the woods. The film examines the tremendousand sad complexity of Johan's life, and the further unsettling influence of Marianne'sreturn to the scene.While there is a surface pleasure in seeing the two together again, we realize how poisonousJohan has become, allowing his 61 year old son from an earlier marriage, and his granddaughterto live in a separate house on the estate, although he hates his son. The granddaughter is in turntrapped by a desperate, near incestuous relationship with her father. In a series of simple, honest,and very powerful scenes, we watch these characters bounce off of each other in various combinations.And while all of them are plagued by deep, perhaps unforgivable flaws, I always understood thatBergman felt for them, and wished the fragments of humanity buried inside could free them. I didn'tfeel the film was as dark as many people for this reason. Like a directing priest, Bergman hates the sin,but not the sinner, so these people, so easy to hate, or at least dismiss on paper, keep us interestedand emotionally involved, praying they will find their way out of the darkness. A strong and powerfulwan song from a great film-maker, making his last film at 85.

... whether it be Eros or Agape, man and woman, parent and child, as Ingmar Bergman has forced us to perceive in film after film. "Saraband" was Bergman's last film, released in 2006. It's certainly not his best film, or even one of his best five films, and I'm certain he didn't intend it as such. It's not an ambitious or original film. Rather it seems to be a 'last dance' with the brilliant actors and actresses whose performances made Bergman the greatest Director per se of cinema history. Whatever resistance you may have toward Bergman's torturous pessimism, whatever your discomfort with his pace of observation and/or his disingenuous detachment, you will have to be astonished at the performances of Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson in "Saraband". They 'inhabit' their characters as richly as a goldfinch inhabits its feathers. Ensemble acting, and the direction of actors who knew each other thoroughly as an ensemble, was the core of Bergman's creativity. But "Saraband" also features a young actress -- Julia Dufvenius in the role of Josephson's granddaughter -- whose performance is also utterly Bergmanesque. The old Director hadn't lost his touch with actresses!I don't mean to tell you what this film is about, or to critique its moral/psychological message. I merely want to suggest that any film-goer who has esteemed Bergman's greatest poignant works -- Wild Strawberries, Fanny and Alexander, and others -- would be foolish to miss his last saraband.

This chamber piece concludes Bergman's exploration of the pathology of human relationships. Johan (Erland Josephson) is a reclusive millionnaire who lives in a remote place surrounded by forest and lakes. His son, Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt) lives in a smaller house in his father's grounds with his daughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius). Karin is a promising cellist and her father is teaching her to play a difficult Bach saraband (a saraband is a slow dance in a certain rhythm). He presses her too far on occasions, even using physical force to stop her leaving a lesson. Johan's wife and Karin's mother, Anna, died a few years before from what sounds like cancer.This trio is the emotional engine of the film, in particular the hatred between Johan and his son. Lying over all three, like a shroud, is the absence of Anna and her love. When Anna is mentioned in a significant way, her black and white photograph is seen, the camera tracking slowly towards it. I gather that the lovely woman is Bergman's late wife and this fact gives her ghostly presence an autobiographical poignancy. Her death was a devastating blow to her emotionally inadequate husband and son.Henrik teaches music but makes a poor living. Though not obviously a spend thrift, he cannot live on his income and repeatedly asks his father for money. This keeps him in Johan's orbit despite their mutual hatred for each other. Johan hated Henrik almost from the start - overweight and wheedling - and in one powerful scene he tells his son how, when Henrik was 18, he made an apology of sorts and was rebuffed. It seems Henrick is like he is because of Johan. What emotional damage would be done by a father who was repulsed by you and hated you? Yet Johan does not appear to be a cruel man in other ways. In the last interview he ever gave in 2005, Bergman was asked why he never kept in touch with his many children. He replied that he wasn't really into family life. Could the Johan-Henrik relationship have some bearing on Bergman's own absence of emotional bonds to his offspring?Henrik's relationship with Karin is far from normal. He is over-dependent on his daughter and this is a strain on her. Although there was nothing explicit, I thought there was sexual overtones to their relationship. They slept in the same double bed and there was one scene (used in publicity photos for the film) where she kneels before her seated father. She puts her arms round his neck and strokes his neck with her hands. She does this as she would to a lover. She is extremly tender and I found this scene surprisingly beautiful.Marianne (Liv Ullman) plays Johan's ex-wife who decides to look him up. She tries to explore their distant marriage, without much success. She strikes up a relationship with Karin - perhaps the young woman finds some of the love her mother gave her. Marianne's role, though important, is partly a structural device, facilitating the flow of the film, book-ending it with her photographs spread out on her table at home and leading us into the main action (perhaps not an appropriate word for a Bergman film).

This is one of my three favourite Bergman films (the others being "Autumn Sonata" and "Fanny and Alexander"). The 30-year gap between "Saraband" and "Scenes From a Marriage" is well-bridged and this film follows on comfortably from the earlier one. The acting is outstanding; it invariably is with Ullmann and Josephson and that of Dufvenius and Ahlstedt attain this high standard, too. A very moving film.

My interest in the film had been provoked by an interview related by Aldo Garzia (in "Il Manifesto" of 23 January 2014 after the death of the Maestro Claudio Abbado) that an Italian newspaper, "ll Corriere della Sera", had had with the Maestro and which had been published on 22 September 2004. My interpretation of this beautiful and emotionally-charged film, the last of which Bergman was to make and he talks about this in the wonderful documentary that accompanies the film in the DVD, is "just" that: the emotional experiences behind our choices, and our ability to firstly put them in focus as far as possible and then face them.

Review as above.

Bergman , après presque cinquante ans de cinéma , offre ce film " de chambre " , concentré et du plus haut niveau , très épuré , creusant inlassablement et sans concessions , quasiment " jusqu'à l'os " , les caractères , les conflits , les impasses psychologiques et existentielles , en dix chapitres concis et denses , avec une caméra soucieuse d'aller , plus que jamais , à l'essentiel , dans un dialogue avec deux grands comédiens qui ont accompagné Bergman si longtemps ...Film délibérément sans séduction plastique immédiate , à l'ingrate image tv ( mais quelle importance tant le film nous empoigne ! ) , cruel et âpre ( l'éprouvante confrontation entre un père méprisant et un fils humilié , dans la bibliothèque ! ) ... mais non dépourvu de trouées de lumière saisissantes : l'admirable scène dans la petite Eglise où se répondent une sublime Sonate en trio de Bach et la contemplation , apaisée pour une fois , de la question de Dieu ; la splendide séquence où les deux anciens époux , au soir de leur vie , se serrent nus dans un lit étroit !Film de la plus haute intelligence , mais aussi de la plus réelle compassion pour ces pauvres humains qui se débattent et souffrent ...Film qui renvoie au statut d'oeuvrettes les drames psychologiques du cinéma courant de qualité , de l'époque et de maintenant .A quand une véritable intégrale en blu ray du cinéma de Bergman , utilisant toutes les ressources de la restauration de pellicule , avec les prodigieux moyens informatiques disponibles ?