Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb sequel to "Scenes from a Marriage" exploring old age., 30 April 2007
Ingmar Bergman's directed his final film and a sequel to the wonderful 1973 "Scenes from a Marriage" in 2002 aged 84.
"Saraband" stands alone as a drama but acquaintance with the earlier film brings out the full meaning and poignancy. Thirty years have past since Marianne (Liv Ullman) and Johan (Erland Josephson) last met and on an impulse Marianne visits him.
Thirty years have passed dramatically, thirty years separate the making of the two films and the stars are thirty years older; "Scenes from a Marriage" is one of my all time great movies and the aging of the stars gives this film especial poignancy. The fine photography and Ingmar Bergman's belief that the most beautiful picture in the world is a close up of the human head against a plain background provides us with extreme close ups cruelly exposing the aging process.
Old age is at the heart of this film, looking back on what might have been, pragmatically acknowledging the present, the gulf between the old and the young, the need for the young to escape the influence of the old.
Ullman and Josephson reprise their roles superbly, and are joined by Johan's son from another marriage Henrik (Borge Ahlstedt) and his granddaughter Karin (Julia Dufvenius). Karin has developed a close bond with her father Henrik following her mothers death also Henrik is teaching her the cello. This obsessive relationship is fascinating, contrasting Henrik's dual personality as devoted, sensitive and loving husband and father with the vengeful hatred of his grandfather.
As usual with Bergman all the characters are fully rounded human beings in traumatic situations.
The "making of" feature is devoted to Bergman's directing "Saraband", providing historic evidence of his deep concentration and the quiet calm of the studio during filming.
A very fine film and a wonderful ending to Bergman's directing career.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
beauty and stillness, 18 April 2006
This is a great film from Bergman. It is filled with a great silence. The silence of lost and last opportunity. The silent realisation that life without love is meaningless. All the actors are magnificent. It was great seeing the two actors from Scenes from a Marriage reunited after all these years. A great feeling of closure.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BERGMAN'S LAST CINEMATIC FILM, 18 Oct 2007
With Saraband, writer/filmmaker Ingmar Bergman closes the book, so to speak, on his life's work. It's a sequel, which could have been thwarting (why go back and do the same thing over again, one could ask). But it is the kind of sequel that bears significance. 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. He's out to bring some closure to their relationship, however not entirely based on nostalgia. This time two other characters in the film, new ones, become the centerpiece of the story. As with the majority of his works, he finds two key assets that work to his advantage behind his own personal attachment to the project- the camera/lighting, and the cast.
It may be too easy to compare and contrast this film and the series. But it is of interest if only for curiosity sake. There is something of note that revealed to one how the actual cinematography can evolve properly or at least in a fashion that is not off-putting. 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. There are five cinematographers, and it's too tedious to pick out if which one did what properly or who lit this right and so on. But that in Saraband, however, doesn't suffer by way of the digital perspective. If anything, it serves its purpose fully by keeping the naturalistic mood. Some scenes are seen with as clear an eye as ever for Bergman. Others that may be a little more obscured by darkness are affecting psychologically in a way. Bergman's preference is to look at faces and expressions, without much to obscure the actors.
What is of surprise is that Bergman injects two things that he intentionally kept out of 'Scenes'- inner visions (actually shown, not just spoken and felt by the actors), and music. In at least a couple of scenes, to add an intensity and a sense of the surreal, we see what Karina sees in some key moments. She describes an ugly incident with her father. She runs through the woods. When something very ugly occurs, it happens off screen, with a pause given in-between one scream. Needless to say it was tremendously moving. The other involved an enormous, involving fantasy. She's just been told information by her grandfather Johan that is crucial for her decision towards the end. When she sits on the stairs, the camera suddenly cuts to pull back on her on a chair, against a white background, and the camera pulls back further and further at a quick pace. This kind of technique I could feel as if I've seen in maybe a dozen films. When Bergman does this, after such a hopeful scene for Karina, it is a useful technique. Whatever the intention, it's far greater a grab then in a standard action film. Those are the two kinds of scenes/images that are very emotional and immediate on a first viewing.
Ullmann and Josephson, who portrayed Marianne and Johan thirty years ago, never lose their ability to play off each other as actors. The focal point this time is with Henrik and Karina though, so the performances by Ahlstedt and especially Dufvenius for Bergman had to be even more affecting than those of the observers. Ahlstedt's Henrik is a tricky sort to empathize with perhaps: can an audience be with him when the drama unfolds with his daughter? Turns out he brings the humanity in all its darkness and seemingly complex inner-damnation as one of Bergman's most memorable characters. His conflicts with his father and daughter stem from a number of elements, but the key one is very identifiable- death of the one you've loved the most. How can change occur? This is a question posed as well for Karina, and in Ahlstedt playing her she already shows enough talent and gusto to take on stronger roles in the future. At first sight, I thought she might have been over-hitting her mark, or that Bergman was over-directing. This was not the case, and in the subtle moments she revealed herself on the level of one of Bergman's 'ladies' (i.e. Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, and Harriet Anderson).
As the closure, what does Bergman do? He does something rather wise to weave the story of the father and daughter together with the continuing story of Johan and Marianne with an equal resonance and emotional weight. The younger two find their own ends to the means, and I would not dare reveal how and why. But for Marianne Bergman answers a question that was asked if not out-right then with all of the action and tension and buildups and payoffs in 'Marriage'. Does a person know what emotion is, or what it feels like? In the final scene (to put it mildly), he and Ullmann answer it in an approach that practically had me in tears. This would not mark the first time this has happened while viewing a Bergman film, yet the fact that this is the last gave me a cleansing feeling, of the greatest cathartic release with a thoughtful film.
If it's one of the key objectives for a filmmaker in drama and tragedy to reveal it as truthfully as possible, and bring us with the character(s) full-circle, Ingmar Bergman's pulled it off wonderfully. Saraband is one of the crucial swan songs in film history (for my money, and will soon find its way to American theaters (digital projectors more or less likely). A++
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