Liv Ullman directs with a clarity of purpose that is reflected in Bergman's script and Endre's performance. The intensity and wonder of this triumvirate has an hypnotic hold. Emotion is a foreign country. Understanding the language takes forever, or not at all. Inside Marianne is another person with no name.
Love is blind.
As well as mad. I'm searching for answers to questions I never asked. Bergman's understanding of women has always been his forte, never more so than here. Not everything works as well. The concept of having Marianne appear as a ghost, if it is Marianne, or a muse, to the aging director in his work room, complicates, rather than enhances, the storytelling.