GamerTab That was an excellent one.

2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

runamokprods We return to the couple from 'Scenes From a Marriage' 30 years later. They haven't seen each other in all that time. Marianne, still working as a lawyer, goes to visit Johan, now living off a rich inheritance in a house in the woods. The film examines the tremendous and sad complexity of Johan's life, and the further unsettling influence of Marianne's return to the scene. While there is a surface pleasure in seeing the two together again, we realize how poisonous Johan has become, allowing his 61 year old son from an earlier marriage, and his granddaughter to live in a separate house on the estate, although he hates his son. The granddaughter is in turn trapped by a desperate, near incestuous relationship with her father. In a series of simple, honest, and very powerful scenes, we watch these characters bounce off of each other in various combinations. And while all of them are plagued by deep, perhaps unforgivable flaws, I always understood that Bergman felt for them, and wished the fragments of humanity buried inside could free them. I didn't feel the film was as dark as many people for this reason. Like a directing priest, Bergman hates the sin, but not the sinner, so these people, so easy to hate, or at least dismiss on paper, keep us interested and emotionally involved, praying they will find their way out of the darkness. A strong and powerful swan song from a great film-maker, making his last film at 85.

jzappa Saraband is, yes, a sequel to a 5-hour Swedish chamber drama made exactly 30 years earlier. That 5-hour Swedish chamber drama was and still is probably the best love story ever committed to film, essentially because it was the most basic, down-to-earth, everyday story; it took place in a particular culture, modern Sweden, but even if you live in South Africa or Cleveland or Tanzania one can clearly see oneself in spite of any cultural anachronisms. Saraband is a strange continuation of that story, in which the two initial characters, Johan and Marianne, played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann, are not so much the focus but the eyes and ears reacting in their own ways to the disintegration of Johan's family, none of whom Marianne has met since she and he separated so many years ago.The narrative follows a similar structure, much more condensed to be sure, and each scene is its own little vignette with its own little chapter heading. They are showcases of powerhouse acting, on account of not only Ullmann and Josephson, who in their 60s and 80s have yet to give a poor performance that I've ever seen, but also Borje Ahlstedt as Johan's broke and run-down widowed son Henrik, and the beautiful Julia Dufvenius as his trapped and defiant daughter Karin. In one scene between Henrik and his father, who shows us a side of him never before seen in such bare frankness, even in the triply long preceding film, Ahlstedt barely speaks, and yet he does so much more than Josephson with the silence he must use. Indeed, the modus operandi of each scene at large is soliloquy in the guise of two characters, one speaking while looking on and another listening deeply. Such stagy exposition is not at all characteristic of writer-director Ingmar Bergman, the very antithesis of this overtly theatrical form being the then 84-year-old master's original epic Scenes From a Marriage, which unfolded in the most natural possible way it had to, in the dialogue, in the settings, et. al.But regardless of their contrivance, each scene is a self-contained achievement of various degrees of talent from the cast of no more than five actors in all. Bergman's swan song opens with his inimitable camera on Ullmann, his most consistent collaborator, standing by a table covered with photographs. It is a well-lit room, and she addresses us through the fourth wall. She picks up one picture after another, in no real order, just scattered all over the table. Some make her smile, or elicit a comment or a sigh. But then she picks up a photograph of Josephson. Seemingly, because she is the maternal ear and shoulder for each character who soon appears, she must have her own counsel, us if no one else.There is a strange perspective to this film. It appears in general to imprint off of the original film, but it is instead an entirely separate one in spite of its dependence on the original. Ullmann will periodically turn to us for an aside, but we soon forget for many long stretches that it is, or could be, her story, as the camera shares secret moments with every character. The film hardly depicts, or believes in, any kind of actual resolution. Saraband begins by permanently changing our view of the original film's story as it was left three decades before, and ends with just as much certainty as the original did three decades before. Perhaps it is a reflection of old age; that seems to be the significance of the deliberate and extensive soliloquys.

Roland E. Zwick Legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman officially "retired" from film-making in 1982 following the release of his highly acclaimed autobiographical drama, "Fanny and Alexander." That was supposed to have been his swan song, yet, since that time, he has made so many TV movies that have been released into theaters in the United States that, for Americans at least, it has pretty much been a "retirement" in name only.His latest such film to be released here, "Saraband," is, technically, a sequel to his earlier masterwork, "Scenes From a Marriage," which was also a made-for-TV work that received theatrical distribution in the United States in 1974. "Saraband" reunites us with the now-divorced couple, Marianne and Johan, whom we are told have not really spoken to each other for almost thirty years. For reasons that she is not even able to fully explain to herself, Marianne (Liv Ullman) feels compelled to visit her ex-husband (Erland Josephson) and find out how he's doing and, perhaps, figure out if there still might be something between them. However, despite the fact that this new film is billed as an extension of the original "Marriage," Johan and Marianne wind up somewhat on the periphery of the real story which involves the incestuous relationship between Henrik (Borie Ahlstedt), Johan's son from a previous marriage, and his beautiful 19-year old daughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius). Henrik is a classical musician whose beloved wife, Anna, has recently died. In some strange way, he clings to Karin almost as a replacement for Anna - even though there are hints that the incest began before Anna's death and that indeed Anna was aware of it - making it clear to his daughter that he would be utterly destitute if she were ever to leave.This is obviously heady stuff for the viewer, but Bergman is, as always, so in control of his material that we are drawn into the conflict even though, initially, we may be repelled by what is taking place. In addition to the struggle between father and daughter, there is also the intense hatred between Johan and Henrik - so intense, in fact, that Henrik even admits he would take great pleasure in seeing his father stricken with a horrible illness that would cause him a slow and agonizing death. Caught in the middle of all this, as both observer and confidante, is Marianne, who can proffer only so much help and advice before she, too, risks becoming infected by the emotional disease that holds these people in its grip. Yet, of all the characters, Marianne appears to be the most stable and hopeful in her dealings with life. For instance, she can see the ugliness of much of Johan's way of interacting with people, yet she can still find a core of something worth loving buried deep inside the man.Even for a Bergman chamber drama with just four people in its cast, "Saraband" is a remarkably stark piece of cinema and, as such, it may be off-putting to those unfamiliar with the director's work. The camera rarely moves outdoors, preferring instead to remain intensely focused on the characters who pour out at great length their darkest, deepest thoughts for us to muse over and examine. His is a complex tale of people quietly torn asunder by unhealthy obsessions, morbid self-interest and an inability to reach out in love and forgiveness even in the darkest moments of one's life. And as always with Bergman, the four performers transcend mere acting and literally become the characters on screen.The decades certainly haven't mellowed Bergman's mood when it comes to the contemplation of death or the meaninglessness of existence, so make sure you're in the right frame of mind before taking on this film. But those who are true devotees of Bergman's work will certainly not want to miss "Saraband."

revbob-2 From the very first frame, it's obvious Ingmar Bergman hasn't lost his touch. We're safe to settle back and give ourselves into the hands of somebody who knows how to entertain us. Liv Ulmann sets the standard for the ensemble, acting her ass off, as do the rest of the players, with only Julia Dufvenius perhaps chewing the scenery a little too much. Real cello players seldom have the time to study dance, which Dufvenius visibly has, and you could see her dreading having to fake playing the cello. But that's quibbling. She's a firecracker, and a match for anybody in this frighteningly good cast. Even Gunnel Fred, who appears fleetingly, does a little bit of business that is spot on.Everybody in this movie excels, and yet the movie itself isn't enjoyable. The gamut of emotions is brilliantly realized, and yet that gamut runs from A to B. It is a piece by a master - a whole pack of masters, in fact - and yet it's not a masterpiece.Worth seeing? Of course. But unless you have a formidable talent for depression, you may not enjoy it.