A Song for Martin  (2001)

Theatrical Release Information:
A Song for Martin

After a number of big-budget international projects, writer and director Bille August scaled himself back with this intimate story about two people who find both love and tragedy late in life. Martin (Sven Wolter) is a well-known and highly respected classical composer and conductor in his early sixties. While rehearsing for a concert, Martin becomes aquatinted with Barbara (Viveka Seldahl), the orchestra's concertmaster who is ten years his junior. While both Martin and Barbara are married, there is a strong mutual attraction between them, and after a brief affair they decide to divorce their respective mates and get married. Despite the objections of their children (all of whom are fully grown), Martin and Barbara wed, settling into a happy and productive relationship in Sweden. But five years later, while Barbara assists Martin with his latest project, she notices his memory seems to be failing him, and his personality is beginning to shift. A doctor diagnoses Martin's condition as the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and as his condition worsens, Martin finds it more and more difficult to write the music that means so much to him. Barbara, on the other hand, wants to help her husband, but as his memory fades and his confidence goes with it, she sees the brilliant artist she fell in love with slipping away, and she's not sure how she feels about the increasingly feeble stranger who has taken his place. En Sang For Martin was based on the novel Boken om E by Ulla Isaksson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide