The Touch

It's the story of a married woman falling in love with another man. The married couple - Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson - does live in fine rapport, their personalities matching well. Both are quiet, contemplative, and very rational persons, not liable to act spontaneous. The intruder - Elliott Gould - on the idyll which they embody together with their teenaged daughter is in contrast an impetuous man, uncompromising, overbearing, and tormented by inner contradictions and compulsions. Andersson tells him at one point that he hates himself. The two clandestine lovers aren't appropriate for each other. They have difficulties to accept the other's social behaviour and stance and don't like it to lie to their environments. But soon they cannot live without each other anymore.

The point of the film cannot be to show how two contrary characters complement each other, as Andersson was even more happy with von Sydow before and because it's all told in such a detached manner. The portrait of a love would like to involve the spectators to convey the joy and pain of it. Instead the question why Andersson turns away from von Sydow toward Gould seems intentionally perplexing. The dialogues and acting of the lovers is cerebral and cold, as if they were reciting dazedly on a stage, astounding themselves with their actions and feelings. As if they were actuating on an impulse isolate from their personalities. This impulse or drive is not eros, as especially at the beginning of their affaire sex is more a problem than a fulfilment to these two diffident lovers. Maybe love or the need to feel and give love is itself such a drive, an autonomous thing asserting itself regardless of the circumstances and the characters involved.

The central metaphor of the film is a medieval wooden statue of Mary, recently excavated after being buried for centuries - like Gould's and Andersson's potential to be lovers or man and woman. But with the disinterment of the Mary there also come alive insect larvae inside her, corroding her from within. Before they meet Gould attempted suicide and Andersson was reduced to a wife. They flower in their new love and it destroys their lives.

Civilization means in many ways the domestication of our impulses. Therefore Andersson realizes that she must not harm lastingly her family and Gould's hidden wife/sister. This is true. But Gould is telling her that she is lying to herself by not eloping with him and he's right, too.

In a small town in Sweden, Karin Vergerus (Bibi Andersson) is a middle-class housewife, married with Dr. Andreas Vergerus (Max von Sydow) and having a son and a daughter. She meets the disturbed German-American Jewish architect David Kovac (Elliott Gould), who is restoring a church in her town, and has recently become friend of her husband. David has drinking and smoking problems and after a dinner party at the Vergerus's home, he confesses his infatuation for Karin to her. This declaration revives her sensuality and femininity, which were forgotten after fifteen years of stable and loyal marriage. Karin has an affair with David, tearing apart her world: in one side, she has the stability and safety of her boring marriage and bourgeois life, and in the other side, she has the freedom of the relationship with her lover. She has lots of difficulties to decide the course of her life. This magnificent open end film is another wonderful work of Ingmar Bergman, his first English spoken movie. Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow and Elliott Gould have again outstanding performances in a touching story about a thirty-four years woman divided in two possible lives and without knowing how to decide the way to be followed. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `A Hora do Amor' (`The Hour of the Love')

Not one of Ingmar Bergman's- Sweden's greatest director and one of the greats in film history- masterpieces like The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander, Wild Strawberries, Cries and Whispers and Persona. But it was better than I'd heard it was and it beats All These Women and The Serpent's Egg any day. The Touch is wonderfully shot by Sven Nykvist, no surprise as Nykvist's cinematography was always striking, complimenting the gritty yet beautiful locations just as well. There are moments where Bergman's inexperience in bilingual shows but he still directs capably and most thoughtfully with not many signs of heavy-handedness or pretensions if any at all. The music is appropriately atmospheric and takes care not to be intrusive. The story for the first two thirds is touching and mostly compelling, with themes and plot strands that are relatable to anybody going through the same thing, it didn't come across as heavy-handed to me, and have a sense of Bergman's style. Bibbi Anderssen is superb in a very nuanced portrayal, if there was a pick for the best thing about The Touch it would definitely by Anderssen's performance. Max Von Sydow is as enigmatic and stoic as ever, with facial expressions and eye contact that speaks volumes, a very sympathetic performance. The Touch is sadly hurt by mainly Elliot Gould as a rather stiff lead, and the awkward dialogue written for him(Anderssen and Von Sydow are not as badly affected though, though they have had much better material) and padding in the final third particularly that leads to literally nowhere are just as problematic. That is personal opinion though. Overall, not a bad film at all, in fact it is an interesting one especially for Anderssen and the cinematography but Bergman has done much better than this. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This underrated Ingmar Bergman film is a disappointment to some and a puzzle to others. But if the viewer looks past the mundane story line, a middle class marriage threatened by a moody, violent stranger, one can see just how much richness Bergman has invested into this otherwise predictable type of story. I found Karin, the modern heroine in this story, to be a perfect symbol of the flip-side of Bergman's fascinating female protagonists.

The harsh criticism that Elliott Gould received for having accepted this role was unjustified and grossly exaggerated. Taking on a role like this is a thankless task at best and his interpretation of the despicable David was misunderstood. I think it was an authentic and courageous performance, an example of an actor who decides to portray the character straight without looking to advertise his own star persona.

Confronted by a type like David, we can understand how Karin could succumb to his advances and not even see where she's heading in this self-destructive relationship. We see stranger stuff than this in real life, why not accept it being put to an audience by the greatest film director who ever lived?

Not as bad as the recently watched The Serpent's Egg (1977) made in West Germany but still enough of a Curate's egg to ensure that the bad parts infect the whole. The English dialogue, written by Bergman is wretched and it is an indication of the man's dictatorial attitude that it should have got through to the screen. Elliott Gould seems terrible but that may be in part because of the words he has to spout, well maybe he should have said something, or improvised like he has before. Not with God in the room, perhaps. Bibi Andersson does better and truly apart from the stunning cinematography is the only reason to watch this abomination. Starting appallingly, the film does pick up, probably as with any bad film, we almost get used to the unconvincing dialogue but then the last third is almost laughable. The director has, of course made great films, before and after this, so we will put it down to having been 'lost in translation' and leave it to the completists.