Thursday, August 18, 2005
BAIT AND SWITCH
Saw Ingmar Bergman's Saraband at the Music Box on Tuesday night. Bergman has said that this is his last film and, although he's said things like that before, considering that he's about eighty-seven years old, we might want to take him at his word this time.
Saraband continues the story of Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann), the couple from Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage. Marianne has decided to see Johan for the first time in many years. She travels to his home in rural Sweden, finding him alone. Well, not quite alone. His more than middle-aged son, Henrik, and grand-daughter, Karin, live not too far away at a summer cottage that Johan owns. Johan and Henrik do not get along, as Henrik blames his father for having abandoned him years ago. It's unclear how long Marianne intended to stay with Johan, but she quickly becomes enveloped in this threadbare family's drama.
Saraband opens promisingly enough with a great scene between Ullmann and Josephson. The two actors do a fantastic job of conveying the mixed emotions of the characters upon seeing each other after so many years. They are by turns affectionate, cagey, bitter, and humorous. There isn't a false note anywhere. Then the film veers into unwelcome territory.
In the next scene, (one of ten parts), Johan's grand-daughter shows up in tears at Johan's home, startling a puzzled Marianne. We learn that Karin is a cello prodigy, tutored by her father, and that Henrik is a harsh taskmaster. But we later learn that Henrik and Karin have a messsy, quasi-incestuous relationship. It seems that Henrik's wife Anna died a few years before the action of the movie, a devastating blow. Henrik has since found a surrogate for his wife in his daughter. Now, if Bergman wants to make a film where two characters have an incestuous relationship, that's fine, but, at the very least, he could have made these characters interesting, and not just vehicles for dull, recriminatory speeches that sound like parodies of himself.
That's all we get for the rest of the film, speech, after speech, after speech. Karin rails against Henrik, Henrik rails against his father, and Johan rails at Henrik. As all of this hysteria swirls about, Ullmann is relegated to a by-stander's role, looking embarassed by all the sturm and drang. Occasionally, she utters some sort of vaguely wise advice, but that's about it. Ullman and Josephson are barely on screen together for most of the film. It's as if Bergman were not up to the task of examining Johan and Marianne again and decided to shoehorn Henrik and Karin's story into the film because he couldn't think of anything better to do. Maybe I'm bitter because I thought this film would be a final reckoning of Johan and Marianne's relationship, instead of a talky drama about a cello schoalrship, but all I could think after leaving the theater was, "What a waste!" ¶ 7:27 AM
Saraband continues the story of Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann), the couple from Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage. Marianne has decided to see Johan for the first time in many years. She travels to his home in rural Sweden, finding him alone. Well, not quite alone. His more than middle-aged son, Henrik, and grand-daughter, Karin, live not too far away at a summer cottage that Johan owns. Johan and Henrik do not get along, as Henrik blames his father for having abandoned him years ago. It's unclear how long Marianne intended to stay with Johan, but she quickly becomes enveloped in this threadbare family's drama.
Saraband opens promisingly enough with a great scene between Ullmann and Josephson. The two actors do a fantastic job of conveying the mixed emotions of the characters upon seeing each other after so many years. They are by turns affectionate, cagey, bitter, and humorous. There isn't a false note anywhere. Then the film veers into unwelcome territory.
In the next scene, (one of ten parts), Johan's grand-daughter shows up in tears at Johan's home, startling a puzzled Marianne. We learn that Karin is a cello prodigy, tutored by her father, and that Henrik is a harsh taskmaster. But we later learn that Henrik and Karin have a messsy, quasi-incestuous relationship. It seems that Henrik's wife Anna died a few years before the action of the movie, a devastating blow. Henrik has since found a surrogate for his wife in his daughter. Now, if Bergman wants to make a film where two characters have an incestuous relationship, that's fine, but, at the very least, he could have made these characters interesting, and not just vehicles for dull, recriminatory speeches that sound like parodies of himself.
That's all we get for the rest of the film, speech, after speech, after speech. Karin rails against Henrik, Henrik rails against his father, and Johan rails at Henrik. As all of this hysteria swirls about, Ullmann is relegated to a by-stander's role, looking embarassed by all the sturm and drang. Occasionally, she utters some sort of vaguely wise advice, but that's about it. Ullman and Josephson are barely on screen together for most of the film. It's as if Bergman were not up to the task of examining Johan and Marianne again and decided to shoehorn Henrik and Karin's story into the film because he couldn't think of anything better to do. Maybe I'm bitter because I thought this film would be a final reckoning of Johan and Marianne's relationship, instead of a talky drama about a cello schoalrship, but all I could think after leaving the theater was, "What a waste!" ¶ 7:27 AM
