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A SONG FOR MARTIN Send This Review to a Friend
The tragedy of anyone succumbing to Alzheimer's is a sad one, but the deterioration of a gifted composer and conductor who is losing his mental functions is additionally jolting, especially in the dramatic situation in which a new love relationship has blossomed just before the onslaught. Sven Wollter as Martin, the conductor, and Viveka Seldahl as Barbara, a violinist in his orchestra, fall for each other in the Swedish film "A Song for Martin" and leave their respective spouses so that they can begin an idyllic new life. A first sign of memory loss signals what's ahead.
Noted writer-director Bille August has based his somber film on Ulla Isaksson's novel "Book about E," and we are invited to watch the step-by-step, unstoppable toll of the illness as Martin descends into ultimate helplessness. It is a devastating and woeful spectacle that engulfs both the victim and the wife who struggles to care for him.
Yet there is something that eventually begins to seem dense about Barbara in her insistence on her ability to break through to Martin, who is increasingly frustrated, angry and hostile, leading to his striking back violently. Life is terribly hard on Barbara, but her determination that her love can be enough to help is a futile and even egotistical one. Yet she is positively heroic in her life of sacrifice in trying to ease her beloved Martin's passage into his own blocked world of nothingness.
Both Wollter and Seldahl are superb in their roles, but I kept asking myself why I wasn't being as emotionally moved watching this film as I was with "Iris," which also deals with Alzheimer's, in that case with a husband tending his stricken wife. Perhaps it is because there is much more artistry to "Iris" than there is to "A Song for Martin," which has more of a flavor of documenting an illness than reaching deeper. As a postscript, it is sad to note that not long after the completion of the film the excellent actress Viveka Seldahl died of cancer. A First Look Pictures release.
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