|
Like caviar, Ingmar Bergman is an acquired taste. I consider his 1957 film "Wild Strawberries" to be a masterpiece
and it is one of my all time favorite films. I have not seen a lot of Bergman films, but many of the ones that I have seen
have driven me to distraction with their repressed rage, bitterness, hopelessness, and strident anti-Catholicism.
There is no question that Bergman's films are masterfully acted, directed and edited. That they are works of art is beyond
question, but are they works of art that anyone wants to see or will enjoy seeing? This is the question.
A second question might be about the artistic relationship between technical perfection and subject matter. Can the subject
matter sink a film no matter how well it has been done? Logic would seem to dictate that the answer would have to be yes,
because we can always postulate about an extreme situation, a snuff film perhaps, being beautifully executed.
General critical rapture has accompanied the release of this made for Swedish television movie as witnessed by its very
favorable critical rating of 91% on the RottenTomatoes web site.
Maybe the critics are out of step here. The audience that was in the theater where I watched the film was respectful but
plainly discomfited by watching this movie. I feel more in tune with their impressions than I do with that of the major critics
as I felt much the same way. By the time Chapter 8, "Saraband," came up, I thought that this was to be the closing
chapter and I was disappointed when it turned out that it wasn't.
The problem with this movie is that none of the characters are likable and none of them change with the passage of time.
Bergman delights in filming toxic relationships and you will find plenty of evidence of that in this film. These people are
dripping with toxicity.
On a whim, Marianne (Ullmann), a lawyer between cases, travels to meet her ex-husband, Johan (Josephson), thirty years
after the dissolution of their sixteen year marriage. Although they were compatible on an intellectual level, Johan had not
been able to love her as she had wished. Further adding to her distress were his numerous instances of infidelity.
Johan, a retired university professor, is now living at an isolated cabin that he had inherited from an aunt along with
her considerable fortune.
Perhaps Marianne makes the trip because she is curious to see how or if his newfound wealth has affected him. Perhaps
she wants to settle old scores. Perhaps she wants to bury the hatchet and bind the wounds that separate them. Whatever her
reason, she is unprepared for what awaits her when she arrives unexpectedly and lands right in the middle of a very bitter
family contretemps between Johan and Henrik, his middle-aged son from his second marriage.
Marianne plays the catalyst who causes all of the other family members to react and to use her as a sounding board. She
is quiet and friendly, if not warm and maternal, and she quickly becomes the trusted intermediary between the various family
members like the good lawyer that she is.
Johan is initially upset that she showed up without notice, for his life is well ordered and she should have known that
he hates surprises. But he quickly becomes used to having her around, so much so that a day visit becomes an overnight visit
which eventually drags into a longer visit that lasts for several weeks until early October when she has to go home to prepare
for a new case.
In the meantime she meets each of the family members, one by one in duets of revelation, until all have confided the darkest
of family secrets to her.
Johan's son, Henrik (Borje Ahlstedt), tells Marianne that he hates his father so much that he would love to watch him
die and be able to visit him every day to take notes of his deteriorating condition as he approaches death.
For his part, Johan, who ought to be arriving at some peace with the world as he is in his early eighties, despises his
son as being chubby and needy and a failure at life even though he is a renowned musician and until recently headed up a respected
national orchestra.
Johan despises him even more for somehow having married the only woman, Anna, that Johan has ever loved in his life. How
she ever came to accept Henrik has befuddled and infuriated him ever since. Now Anna has been dead for two years and both
Johan and Henrik have only her teenaged daughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius), as the single joy in their lives as she so much
resembles her dead mother.
"Saraband," a title that comes from cello suites composed by Bach meant to signify dances between couples, is
a suitable though enigmatic title for a film that originally had the working title of "Anna." I am not aware that
Bergman every named a movie after a person, but this film could just as easily have been titled, "Anna."
Like Rebecca in the famous Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name, Anna still exerts a powerful grip on all those who
she has left behind as she is the one person who all agree is worthy of love.
Everyone has a large picture of a very beautiful, freckle faced, and dark-haired Anna (In actuality, this is a picture
of Ingrid von Rosen, Bergman's beloved wife who died from cancer). They all look forlornly at her picture as she is a relic
from a far happier past. Her death has left a gaping hole in the fragile familial relationships that are once again filled
with the cement of anger, bitterness, and the very unhealthy desire to control the destinies of others.
Henrik and his daughter play a Bach saraband late in the film and Bergman uses this metaphor throughout each of the movie's
ten chapters, all of which are duets between two different people. If only the people were as beautiful as the music. It is
easy to understand why Bergman selected this title as it is more descriptive of the complex dance that these four people do
with each other during a late Swedish summer.
The father despises his only son and uses the power of his purse to control him as he is wealthy and his son is not. The
son grasps onto his daughter like a life preserver as she is the only part of his wife that he has left. Not content with
wanting to control her career and manipulating her in such a way that she is never far from him, it is also clear that he
has vaguely expressed sexual desires for her. They even sleep in the same bed and he caresses her and kisses her in an inflammatorily
incestuous manner.
He also manipulates her paternal feelings for him by giving her subtle indications that he needs her so much that he may
commit suicide should she ever leave him. Needless to say, this is a heavy psychological burden for her to carry. The daughter,
Karin (Julia Dufvenius), who is young and pretty and somewhat naive about these matters, loves her dad enough to allow him
considerable leeway in this area even though she is well aware that he is using her. She chafes under his musical demands
and longs to be set free, but she also doesn't want him to come to any harm.
Henrik wants Karin to attend a local musical conservatory so that she can return home often and they can then play duets
together at the church where he also plays the organ. Unfortunately, he has recently lost his job as the head of a national
orchestra and his efforts to finish a book have been wanting ever since the death of his wife. The result is that he does
not have the money to purchase a cello of a quality suitable for Karen who displays the potential for musical genius.
His father, Johan, will be happy to buy a prestigious cello, but only if Karin agrees to his terms, which are to leave
the area and attend a prestigious European conservatory where a Russian conductor who is a personal friend of his is on the
faculty and will offer his services in making sure that Karin gets an admittance to the school.
So Johan wants to control his granddaughter in his way while his son wants to control her in another way and both want
to control her in a way where she is not under any control by the other. Karin is caught in the middle with only Marianne
as her new and trusted confidante.
The summer comes to an end with each of the three people using Marianne as a sounding board. Like the lovely, isolated
countryside where they all live, little changes for the better. Only Karin has hope for getting away as she may leave for
a musical education elsewhere.
Of course, Marianne will return home to her quiet life and the pleasure of a long legal career with only pictures to remind
of the pent up rage and hatred still undiminished up north in that beautiful lakeside locale.
|
