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SARABAND Send This Review to a Friend
Ingmar Bergman is the greatest filmmaker of our time. There are other terrific directors, but he has managed an unusual accomplishment—excelling in the visuals of cinema, the use of sound and an ability to probe the depths of the human psyche and emotion. It is a rare combination. Even a few of his films would place him in the pantheon of directors. But when you consider the body of his work spanning more than half a century, the results are staggering.
A thrilling opportunity at the 2004 New York Film Festival was seeing “Saraband,” which Bergman wrote and directed and which is now in commercial release. We keep hearing that the master is through making films, and presto, here is yet another achievement of his, a follow-up on his brilliant 1973 “Scenes from a Marriage.” When I interviewed Bergman on his Swedish isle in the early 1980s, he said he wanted to quit before he had to be carried out. But here he is, still in great form.
Time jumps forward and Marianne, exquisitely played by Liv Ullmann once again, decides to see how her former husband Johan (Erland Josephson) is doing. She visits him at his retreat, and the fireworks begin all over again. This time Johan is nursing a tense relationship with his son Henrik and a controlling one with his daughter Karin, who he is hoping will become a concert artist. Marianne has stumbled into an emotional cauldron.
But there is also some remaining tenderness between her and Johan, perhaps the fear of growing old, perhaps their former bond. The basic explosion, however, is between Henrik, played wonderfully by Börje Ahlstedt, and his father, which brings to mind the conflicts Bergman has written about concerning his own father. Julia Dufvenius is excellent as Karin and has a very effective confrontation scene when she asserts herself.
“Saraband” demonstrates anew how powerful a filmmaker Bergman is. In no time he plunges us into a totally engrossing story, and his technique of having a character talk directly into a camera still packs a wallop. Within 107 minutes he tells so much about the human condition and the emotions that can drive us.
Although this is a painfully sad film in its observations about the tensions and conflicts affecting its characters, there is excitement in experiencing the purity of the master’s artistry and the brilliance of his actors. If this should indeed be his last film, it would stand as a magnificent conclusion to his conquest of the art form. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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