Saraband

Plot synopsis:
The film is structured around ten acts with a prologue and epilogue.
It opens with the camera on Marianne standing by a table covered with photographs. It is a well-lit room, and she addresses the viewer. She picks one picture up after another; they are in no particular order, being just heaped all over the table. Some make her smile, or elicit a comment or a sigh. But then she picks up a photograph of her husband, prompting her to reminisce about how they had been more or less happy, and how they'd broken up. She goes on to recall how his second marriage failed, while she was already married to a second husband herself, and then when her second husband died (by flying a glider off somewhere and disappearing), she reflects that it would be nice to see her first husband again.
Marianne travels into the country to the home of her ex-husband, and father of her daughters Martha and Sara, Johan. Johan is undergoing a family crisis with his insolvent and needy son, Henrik, and granddaughter, Karin. Karin is 19, and Henrik asks Johan for an advance on his inheritance so that Henrik can buy Karin an old Fagnola cello, to make a better impression at the audition for the European music conservatory. The elderly Johan decides to consider the offer and to contact the cello dealer himself. While Henrik is away tending to the orchestra he conducts in Uppsala, Johan has a private meeting with Karin, informing her of a proposal from Ivan Chablov, head conductor in the St. Petersburg orchestra and an old friend of Johan, that Karin join him at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
While considering this offer Karin also finds an old letter from her departed mother Anna written to Henrik a week before her death. In the letter, Anna asks Henrik to relieve Karin of the unhealthy control he holds over her as her cello teacher. When Henrik encounters Karin again upon his return from Uppsala, where he no longer holds a position as concertmaster, he attempts to convince Karin into performing a concert of Bach's Cello Suites with him. She finally confronts him about his control over her and tells him of her decision to take an opportunity to study with her friend Emma in Hamburg under Claudio Abbado. The final request by Henrik is that Karin play the sarabande from Bach's 5th Cello Suite, which she already knows.
We encounter Marianne and Johan some time later, after Karin has already left for Hamburg. Marianne receives a phone call stating that Henrik has been found in the hospital having attempted suicide with pills and by cutting his wrists and throat. In the next scene a pained Johan suffering from a sort of anxiety attack seeks out Marianne and eventually disrobes along with her and joins her in bed. Next, Marianne is holding a still of the couple in bed and explaining what happened after that episode. She explains how she and Johan had kept in contact until one day she was no longer able to reach him. She thinks again of the departed Anna and recollects a visit to her ill daughter Martha who is in a sanatarium. She explains the contact she shared with her daughter and how she had never really been able to touch her before this moment.

Tags: bleak, dramatic, violence, flashback, insanity, romantic

Review:
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.
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.
:-)Bergman weaves a tale of vindictive dependence and of a young girl's decision to finally make her own way in life - despite some very powerful forces preventing such a move.Marianne decides to seek out Johan, meets him and becomes involved in the tug of war over his grand-daughter's future with the girl's father, Johan's depressed son Henrik (wonderfully played by Börje Ahlstedt).A quiet, intensive film.
Mr. Bergman seems to have composed a suite in which the Sarabande movement, which is usually introspective and dark, gives the tone to his account in this new work.If you haven't seen the film, perhaps you should stop reading now.When we last saw Johan and Marianne they gave the impression their relationship was over.
There are a number of serious works at the Festival and they should be judged by an independent panel of experts - there is a discussion afoot to create a new award along these lines - otherwise it is like comparing Beethoven with the Beatles.Saraband, in true Bergman tradition, wrestles with human relationships, using a slow pace, pointed dialogue, and heavy use of symbolism to explore the psychological states of the characters.
The quietness which surrounds this film, the excellent actor performances, the long footages of close-ups of faces, the first cello sonato of Bach (Saraband), the old man who is a bit like Bergman himself; all this makes the film a masterpiece.
"Saraband" is a moving and challenging, successful return by Bergman to the quality of films of an earlier period, like "Hour of the Wolf" or of course "Scenes from a Marriage," with characters held in confessional close-ups, trapped by ego and anxiety.
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.
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.
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.
Originally shot for television in high definition video, Ingmar Bergman's latest film, Saraband, is about the reunion of a husband and wife after thirty years of divorce and separation.
The film is vintage Bergman with revealing close-ups, emotionally intense dialogue, an old-fashioned style of film-making, and a surfeit of bitterness about the human condition.Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson, the original screen couple from Bergman's 1973 film Scenes of a Marriage, reunite in his summer home for their first face to face contact since their breakup.
Living nearby are Henrik (Borje Ahlstedt), Johan's son from a second marriage and his daughter Karin (Julia Dufvenius), a promising young cellist.
"A saraband is a grave, courtly Baroque dance.." Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson), the heroes of "Scenes of a Marriage (1973), meet again after thirty years when Marianne suddenly decides to visit Johan at his old summer house.
The story of Marianne and Johan in this film provides a background for another story which involved Johan's son from his first marriage, 61 year old musician Henric and his 19 year old daughter Karin whom Henric has been giving cello lessons and dreams of her becoming a famous performer.
There is one more character present in the movie, even though she's been dead for two years - Anna, late Henric's wife and Karin's mother who has been deeply missed and mourned by everyone including Johan.This film is dedicated to Ingrid von Rosen, Bergman's last wife who died in 1995.
But there is hope in the movie for young Karin who breaks out of the world that she was forced to believe she belonged to but she did not and she found the strength to leave and to be free and to make her own decisions...As all Bergman's films, "Saraband" does not provide the easy answers to the difficult questions; it does not provide any answers at all but as old Johan in the most moving scene of the film bares his body, Bergman bares his very soul and lets us look inside of it and maybe learn something about ourselves..
The young lady who plays it is Karin (Julia Dufvenius), who's become a cellist like her father, Johan's despised son Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt).
One isn't sure quite how she spends all this time though Henrik and Karin come back and forth for visits and we see them together at home in some scenes.Bergman returns to his strong Strindbergian theatrical roots in Saraband, which is like stage chamber music, highly organized into named and numbered segments and with two people at a time on screen, Marianne occasionally addressing the camera in soliloquies.
It's thanks to Karin that Saraband has a positive, hopeful thrust, and the strong, radiant Dufvenius brings light and energy into the picture.Unfortunately there are no real surprises, and this final work is not cinematic like Bergman's earlier classics.
The story is simple: An old, long-divorced couple (Marianne and Johan) meets again; and Johan's son Henrik from another marriage, recently widowed, and their daughter Karin live nearby.
While this tidbit may further Sweden's alluring reputation, the casual acceptance of this matter is in fact quite unrealistic, as this reviewer was assured by a reliable Swedish source (who even mentioned "jail"!) Karin's mother Anna, on her deathbed, may have had a hunch that something like this was in the wings, but again, we don't learn for sure, since Karin won't read to Marianne (and hence to us) the last page of her mother's farewell letter (which masterful move, incidentally, spared Bergman the writing of it).We can't quite figure out what Karin's notion is about her domestic setup - does she hate the sex but loves daddy otherwise (whom she calls "Henrik", isn't' that cool?), or does she really only hate the daily cello drills (since she just wants to play in an orchestra rather than train to be a soloist, as we hear in her great emotional outburst)?
I have to say that I found this acclaimed swan-song by a great film-maker to be, at best, third-rate Bergman; even the lesser efforts from his vintage period are a good deal preferable to it – at least, they showed a real cinematic sensibility…whereas this feels merely like a piece of filmed theatre (and not a very compelling one at that!).Anyway, the plot follows on from Bergman’s much earlier SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1973; which I still haven’t watched because I can’t convince myself to willfully submit to 8 hours of misery!) – but, actually, the central situation here is almost a reprise of AUTUMN SONATA (1978)...only, it’s even less appetizing!
Ironically, I was more drawn in by the performances of the two ‘new’ members of the Bergman stock company of actors and especially the young Julia Dufvenius (though Borje Ahlstedt was actually featured in 6 films written by the Swedish master as well as a TV mini-series, of these the only major title which had Bergman as director was FANNY AND Alexander [1982]) rather than those of old reliables Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson.
Saraband is a strange continuation of that story, in which the two initial characters, Johan and Marianne, played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann, are not so much the focus but the eyes and ears reacting in their own ways to the disintegration of Johan's family, none of whom Marianne has met since she and he separated so many years ago.The narrative follows a similar structure, much more condensed to be sure, and each scene is its own little vignette with its own little chapter heading.
They are showcases of powerhouse acting, on account of not only Ullmann and Josephson, who in their 60s and 80s have yet to give a poor performance that I've ever seen, but also Borje Ahlstedt as Johan's broke and run-down widowed son Henrik, and the beautiful Julia Dufvenius as his trapped and defiant daughter Karin.
Such stagy exposition is not at all characteristic of writer-director Ingmar Bergman, the very antithesis of this overtly theatrical form being the then 84-year-old master's original epic Scenes From a Marriage, which unfolded in the most natural possible way it had to, in the dialogue, in the settings, et.
This is performance that transcends technique.Key characters from 1973 Scenes From a Marriage Marianne (Ullman) and Johan (Erland Josephson) reappear in Saraband.
The sensitivity not just of the import of this scene but the way that Bergman shoots it with the naked Ullman in silhouette, is a masterly piece of cinema.Karin, Henrik's cellist daughter, and Johan's granddaughter, supplies the future dimension of Saraband and is played with an impressive hemmed in vitality by Julia Dufvenius.
The characters are to some extent represented by their musical taste - Henrik with his glorious Bach organ works (and the Saraband he loves), Johann by the booming Bruckner scherzo he is playing before and after a pivotal conversation with Karin.The cinematography lacks some of the exceptional qualities of Bergman's earlier work - I suspect that has to do with the TV format and his advancing years - the great man is probably unable to get quite so involved in camera-work these days.
A sequel to Scenes from a Marriage, when Johan and Marianne meet after not having seen each other in 32 years, but also so much more and a film that stands for itself entirely.As usual it is not only what is shown that grabs you as a viewer but just as much what is only indicated or not even that.
Never has any other filmmaker been so challenging and stimulating as the quiet, serene Swede.In this quiet and serene work, Bergman explores even further the underlying emotions and feelings from the same characters as his great 1973 masterpiece, Scenes from a Marriage.
Marianne is able to open the hearts of Karin, Johan, and Henrik and provide a tender voice that brings a degree of resolution to a family broken.As with all of Bergman's films it is not the story content as the method in telling that makes his films so indelibly and quietly passionate.
'Saraband' serves both as Ingmar Bergman's good-bye to film-making (and indeed, life itself, for he would be dead within four years, aged 89) and as a coda to his massively successful 'Scenes from a Marriage' Swedish TV drama series.The characters of Johan and Marianne return in this film, now withered and battle-weary, and ponder their past, trying to understand why they still feel a connection many years after their divorce.
Marianne even turns to the camera, asking the viewer directly if visiting her ex-husband after so many years is a mistake.Johan and Marianne's interactions in 'Saraband' are more gentle and kind than they are in the comparatively explosive 'Scenes from a Marriage' -- no longer do they feel that they desperately need something from each other; nor do they have to argue or play games; they are open, they simply see each other as people, not as lovers, nor as opponents.Of course, this is Bergman, so nothing is as simple as all that.
Johan has a deeply damaged and bitter relationship with his son, Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt), and openly admits to him in one powerful scene that he'd have no relationship with him at all were it not for his granddaughter, Henrik's now grown-up child, Karin.Henrik's relationship with his daughter is even more dark: both are grieving for their wife and mother who died several years previously and the two have a power/guilt relationship wrapped up in that grief and loneliness; and not unlike in Bergman's 'The Silence', incest is implied, but -- with the exception of one kiss that becomes sexual -- is never explicitly confirmed.
Because of this, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson don't have a great deal to work with -- certainly a lot less than they had in the lengthy TV series -- but what they do have is very strong.The most moving scene in the film is when, after a disturbing development involving Johan's son, Marianne and Johan share a bed together naked, for the first time in many years.
Josepheon is shown entirely naked at the age of 80, which is extremely brave acting.'Saraband' is not at the high level of quality of some of Ingmar Bergman's late-career classics, such as the experimental and underrated 'From the Life of the Marionettes', the crushing 'Autumn Sonata' or the internationally celebrated 'Fanny and Alexander', but it is a very fine conclusion to the career of one of the all-time greats.And perhaps Bergman had finally come to terms with his existential relationship with God (or the idea of Him): in one scene, Liv Ullmann visits a church, and after a conversion with Henrik that becomes confrontational, stands up facing the altar and looks at an image of Christ, gripping her hands tightly in prayer..
it feels like he got to do this film only because he's ingmar bergman and not because it's a good movie, and that's pretty sad, isn't it?.
Even Marianne, after talking with Johan for ten or fifteen minutes, rehashing old times and so on, takes a moment, when Johan goes to see about dinner, to look at me with a resigned expression and say: "Oh, God, I think this was a mistake." As the story progressed, maybe she had a point.Because she becomes enmeshed between the opposing views of Johan and Henrik (Borje Ahlstedt), Johan's son by another marriage, about the future musical career of Karin (Julia Dufvenius) who is Henrik's only daughter and a talented cellist.
Saraband (2003) **** (out of 4) Ingmar Bergman's sequel/follow-up to Scenes from a Marriage has Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) reuniting after years of not seeing one another.
Marianne, beautifully played by Bergman's muse, Liv Ullmann, visits her ex-husband, Johan (Erland Josephson), whom she hasn't seen in years, for reasons even she can't explain.
And finally, FINALLY, when she sees how riddled with contempt Johan has become, she begins to be able to distance herself from him, think of herself as having a life of her own away from him, and perhaps even understanding that breaking from him was the best thing that could have happened to their relationship."Saraband" doesn't have the devastating quality of "Scenes from a Marriage." It feels more rushed and less developed.
Legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman officially "retired" from film-making in 1982 following the release of his highly acclaimed autobiographical drama, "Fanny and Alexander." That was supposed to have been his swan song, yet, since that time, he has made so many TV movies that have been released into theaters in the United States that, for Americans at least, it has pretty much been a "retirement" in name only.His latest such film to be released here, "Saraband," is, technically, a sequel to his earlier masterwork, "Scenes From a Marriage," which was also a made-for-TV work that received theatrical distribution in the United States in 1974.
However, despite the fact that this new film is billed as an extension of the original "Marriage," Johan and Marianne wind up somewhat on the periphery of the real story which involves the incestuous relationship between Henrik (Borie Ahlstedt), Johan's son from a previous marriage, and his beautiful 19-year old daughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius).
Bergman captures these strange moments in one's personality which seem to make no sense to anyone else but us; he goes deep into his characters and brings out all their complex, confused emotions.The storyline was straightforward: it's about family, about an old couple  Marianne and Johan  meeting again after several years separated.
It worked very well for me; each unit serves a different purpose while building on the previous one to form the bigger whole; the way Marianne and Karin struck a friendship, for instance, was nicely done; or Henrik explaining to his daughter his fear of being abandoned and how it all relates to his dead wife, Anna.I loved the strange little touches and moments in the movie: Marianne talking to the viewer right at the start was bizarre; her 'one minute longer' scene was funny; Karin's screaming in the middle of the woods was unbearable; seeing her sleep in the same bed with her father took me by surprise; and when she kisses him in the mouth by impulse at the height of an argument, I felt disturbed; Johan's peeing himself at the end left me feeling sad for him, it's these moments of ordinary embarrassment and fear that Bergman seems so good at capturing on the screen.
This wasn't BAD, but in a way it was sad because the scenes between Ullman and Josephson were wonderful and I wanted to see more or this--the acting was so real and these quiet moments were very slow but also very moving.The bulk of the movie involves the sick relationship between Karin (the grand-daughter) and her father, Henrik.
This movie sequel to the television miniseries "Scenes from a Marriage" is also Ingmar Bergman's last film, and I suppose operates as a decent farewell by him too if you're in the mood of viewing it that way.