Product: Saraband (2005)
Rating: 1.0
Sad end for master
In 2003 Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman made his last film ever- although he's said that before, some two decades after his prior farewell to film with Fanny And Alexander. He should have never come back after that valedictory, for his effort, Saraband, a supposed sequel to his 1973 Swedish television smash Scenes From A Marriage, is a bad film- the worst I've yet to see from Bergman, and a bad film by any measure. His other `bad' films, Cries And Whispers and The Serpent's Egg, at least had some redeeming features, as the former was overall, a good solid film, while the latter showed some potential near the end. Saraband, by contrast, is an utter void, and takes all of Bergman's worst tendencies, shoves them all together in one film, recycles the worst parts of a half dozen other of his films, and the concoction is godawful, starting with the abysmal writing. I believe Ingmar Bergman, as a screenwriter, had a strong claim to being the greatest published writer of the 20th Century. Period. But, this work is bad, really bad, not only as a screenplay and a film, but most especially as a sequel to the great Scenes From A Marriage. And it starts with the bad writing.First off, before I delve into that, however, all the major critics are wrong about this film- in their qualitative assessment as well as its ties to Scenes From A Marriage. This is in no way shape nor form a sequel to that film because the two older lead characters, Johan and Marianne (Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman), while sharing superficial qualities in common with the earlier film's qualities, are clearly not the same characters, just as one has to posit that the characters in the tv miniseries version and the shorter film version of Scenes From A Marriage are different characters because they do not go through the exact same things, and key plot elements in one are not in the other. Think of them as parallel universes with slight differences. That contemporary critics miss the obvious in their arts reviews no longer astounds me, it only saddens me. There are too many key differences, however, to be overlooked. If that is so, then the two main characters in this film are even farther removed from the Scenes From A Marriage universe. Yes, they have the same first names, are a divorced couple, and had two daughters together, split up over Johan's similarly named lover- Paula, and work in similar professions to their younger doppelgangers, but all other similarities end there.... What made Scenes From A Marriage a great film was its writing, alone, and that Bergman never condescended. He let his viewers fill in the blanks they knew of from their own lives to background the scenes he showed within. In this film Bergman does not trust his audience, and condescends relentlessly. This is the sort of film that any producer worth their salt should have nixed, for it is an embarrassment to both them and to a great artist who is manifestly past his prime. Real greatness is knowing both what art to create and how, and what art to just leave in the bad idea pile. Bergman manifestly has lost that ability to discern, and this film's greatest flaw is, indeed, that it was ever made. It showcases all of his prior worst tendencies without a dram of his former redeeming greatness. It is forced, overwrought, trite, poorly written and acted, and just plain dull. Bergman leaves no melodramatic angles unused, and all to poor effect- death, suicide, insanity, incest; even Henrik's supposed life or death weighing on his abused daughter. Bergman has, like a child, finally ripped the zit off his face that was annoying him so long, and, with the pimple off, exposed a good deal of the red pulpy flesh beneath, and it ain't pretty!As for the DVD features, there are only a few trailers, a long making of featurette that, unfortunately, is not well structured nor insightful, and the DVD is not dubbed. It only is subtitled, albeit in crisp gold lettering. Saraband is an unfortunate end to one of the greatest careers in human arts, but worst of all shows the utter bankruptcy of most contemporary arts criticism, in that the critics too often excuse what an art lacks as if it has it in full, merely because of the artist's prior works or reputation. By allowing great artists' bad work a pass it sets up a precedent, so that the critic is not singled out for having shamed themselves by `attacking' a master, that tells lesser artists that they do not have to strive either, and thus the downward cycle starts, and society ends up with reams of rotting garbage as bad art, and no one willing to pinpoint the stench. Welcome to the 21st Century world of art, and be thankful last century's Ingmar Bergman never had to deal with it, lest many of his greatest works would have never been made!