Pia Ehrnvall Movies
As the final masterwork of Ingmar Bergman, the world's most revered cinematic craftsperson, Saraband (2003) embodies the sequel to the director's 5-hour Scenes from a Marriage, produced and directed 30 years after that original epic. Here, Bergman revisits the two characters from that film, divorcees Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann), after years of estrangement from one another. Marianne now lives alone; of her two middle-aged daughters from the marriage to Johan, one lives in Australia, while the other suffered a mental breakdown. Marianne has contact with neither. After leafing through an assemblage of old photographs and waxing nostalgic, Marianne decides to revisit the now-wealthy Johan, who lives in the country with an adjoining cottage and two descendants: his 61-year-old widower son Henrik (Borje Ahlstedt of I Am Curious - Yellow) and Henrik's 19-year-old daughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius). The relationships in Johan's family are broken and deeply dysfunctional; Johan resents Henrik, whom he perceives as worthless in every capacity other than fatherhood; Henrik resents Johan for his niggardly attitudes about his wealth; Karin feels bound by familial shackles and yearns to escape the confines of the life that ensnares her, ultimately hoping to move to the city and pursue her dream of becoming a cellist. Bergman uses the central narrative to examine how parents can damage one another by wielding the demands of their own selfish egos and refusing to grant joy and contentment to themselves or their children. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, (more)
- 1998
Ingmar Bergman, at age 80, wrote and directed this Swedish TV movie based on his own family. The original Swedish title is a reference to Act V, Scene V of Macbeth. Divided into four parts and featuring a white-faced clown (Agneta Ekmanner) throughout, the drama begins in 1925 at Uppsala Psychiatric Hospital where middle-aged magician and inventor Carl Akerblom (Borje Ahlstedt) was institutionalized after the attempted murder of his attractive fiancee, Pauline Thibault (Marie Richardson of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut). Intrigued by talking pictures, charismatic Carl, Professor Vogler (Erland Josephson), Pauline, and various actors set out on a tour, arriving in a remote provincial village to perform a play about a relationship between Schubert and Mizzi Veith (who was not even born at the time of Schubert's death). During a snowstorm, the dozen who make up the audience include Carl's stepmother and his half-sister. Conflicts and confrontations ensue. Ahlstedt portrayed Uncle Carl in previous pictures, and other past Bergman characters can also be spotted here. Shown in the Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Börje Ahlstedt, Marie Richardson, (more)
