Autumn Sonata

What makes a movie perfect is not only the intensity of emotion you feel when seeing it, and it's not only the seamless matching of technique and artistry, it is the truth of feeling conveyed and the unrelenting attention to the details of the crafts of writing, acting, and directing, making certain that those details work together to create meaning - a view of life, and whatever forces are behind life, that are as varied, contradictory, and complete as a living being. It is this that Bergman managed to accomplish with AUTUMN SONATA. The hyperbolic use of the word 'perfect', too often spontaneously tossed out as a result of confused and mawkish sentimentality (just as one Liv Ulmann's interpretation of a Chopin prelude is described as mawkish in the film) has a right to be used in the case of this work. There are no demons or angels in this movie. There are a collection of remarkably real characters whose actions and their motivations are fully explained by themselves, in dialog that is explicit and direct but not delivered as an artificial way of getting across the creator's judgment on his characters. Ingrid Bergman, in what is doubtlessly the finest performance of her career, portrays a mother who has neglected her children all her life and is confronted by this fact by her grown daughter whose adoration as a child has turned into an apparently irreversible hatred. "There is no forgiveness" is a line uttered by Liv Ulmann after summarizing the crimes of her mother's neglect and the results of that neglect. And yet, the character's contradictory feelings are clearly seen in the moments when her need for vengeful expression of her pain has faded away. The daughter who has condemned her mother, quite honestly, wants to keep trying to resolve the conflict, to heal the gaping wounds in her heart and in her sister's heart - a sister who, arguably, has been physically crippled by the cold withdrawl of her mother's feelings and her mother's competitive need to be the leading female character in everyone's life. Ingrid Bergman's character, though seen as a villain in the emotional eyes of her daughter, comes across as complex as Ulmann's. She has an awareness of her crimes of neglect but remains helpless, by choice and by need, to confront them within herself and make amends to resolve them. Her own childhood is the reason. The isolation that she felt, instead of inspiring her to not repeat the mistake with her own children, took the course of isolation, of seeking praise from the outside, of being the central character in the lives of people around her. Her insatiable hunger for love from others, though, remains forever unsatisfied. Her selfishness, even though she is painfully aware of it, is something which she has learned how to hide from herself. Her methods, of physical distance or the perfection of her work as a pianist has, for all her adult life, successfully obfuscated her pain - until an all-night exposing of the naked truths of hurt and distrust that are thrust upon her by her daughter.

Anyone with a mother or father can find identification with the characters in AUTUMN SONATA, as long as they can tolerate the pain of the truth that lies at the center of their all-too-human needs and the hurtful action that those needs have caused.

ingrid berman was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly before she agreed to star in this film. due to the fact that insurance companies in hollywood rarely secure contracts with ill actors, ingrid had to take what she could while she was still alive. i don't know what her financial situation was at the time, but i do know that her fee for starring in this film was much less than she was used to. yet, despite her condition, this became, to me at least, her swan-song performance.

during ingrid's prime, she had considerable control of her image in hollywood. she was portrayed, more often than not, as a strong and goddess-like character (casablanca, anyone?). in this film, however, all control of imaging was in the hands of her swedish counterparts ingmar bergman and sven nykvist, and the image they created of her was deconstructive of her screen persona, yet not in her brilliance and ability as an actress.

ingrid hated working with them, though. ingmar would command long takes, and sven would put the camera inches from her face. yet this technique showed a side of ingrid the world has never seen before.

ingrid's character,charlotte, is a successful concert pianist yet unsuccessful mother who returns to see her two daughters and a son-in-law. one daughter is married, yet is incapable of feeling love. and the other (helena, played by 60's swedish film star lena nyman) is left virtually paralyzed. she returns to visit after 7 years, and that's when the sparks fly.

liv ullman, who plays eva, (the married daughter), has usually been portayed as a non-confrontational person in her collaborations with ingmar, yet her persona in this film is slightly reserved in the beginning, but all her inhibitions are unleashed upon charlotte. i've always remembered ingrid as a beautiful painted rose on the screen (for whom the bell tolls, anyone?), but when this film ends, all we see is ingrid's tear-stained face. this may be ingmar's own reaction to his own short-comings as a husband and father (7 kids/4 marriages). in an effort to deconstruct himself, he looked at another icon to drive home his point of childhood pain and adult insecurities.

at this films end, the most punishing scenes occur. i'm not going to spoil it for you, but it's the scene when eva walks amongst cemetery headstones while charlotte takes the train out of town. i hate to admit it, but there was a lump in my throat at this point in the film.

although i praise this film, i wouldn't give this movie a 10 because of nyman's character. although her scene in the beginning is powerful, her other two appearances,(although brief) are way over-the-top, almost as bad as jar-jar binks in phantom menace.

i could write more, but i want everyone who reads this to go see this movie without my crappy opinions ruining it. it's not often that people see a film with such realistic portrrait of the human condition. and as i said earlier, ingrid and ignmar have rarely (maybe never)been better.

9 out of 10 (***1/2 out of ****)

A daughter and her mother reacquaint, it's been some time and there's a picture one will paint, of neglect and disaffection, absence, disdain and rejection, of connection that was nothing more than faint.

The dialogue and discourse are as real as if you were a fly on the wall listening to the words exchanged between Eva and Charlotte as a genuine mother and daughter. The emotions and the tension, as one reveals to the other the torment and torture endured through childhood and beyond as believable as any captured through film. The spectacular performance of Ingrid Bergman only partially eclipsed by the phenomenal talents of Liv Ullmann. The whole encapsulated through one of the greatest interpreters of the human condition that has ever set foot behind a camera. A truly magnificent piece of film making.

This is one of the very best Ingmar Bergman films I have seen, and therefore one of the very best films.

Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullman are simply amazing together as a mother and daughter combination from hell. Ingrid Bergman is terrific, despite a deliberately naff hairdo which makes her look like Queen Elizabeth II of the UK rather than the faded beauty she is. Liv Ullman also has visual nuances to enhance her character - the glasses, platted hair and jumpers enabling this beautiful woman to look frumpy.

The acting is simply amazing, even through the subtitles you can tell. Fortunately Scandinavian vocal nuance is similar enough to English to enable us non-Swedish speakers to appreciate the acting.

Of course, it has the Ingmar Bergman darkness to it. The sister with the horrible degenerative disease, the drowned toddler, the selfishness of the Ingrid Bergman character. If you get depressed along with the characters in films like this, you might be better off giving this one a miss.

But for those with a taste for this type of claustrophobic drama, this is one of the most powerful films you will ever see.

Before she was an international star of incomparable charisma and beauty, and even before Ingmar Bergman became a legendary director of films bleak and intense, Ingrid Bergman played in the Swedish cinema. So it is entirely apropos that someday Bergman might direct Bergman.

Ingrid plays Charlotte, a concert pianist who has, upon the recent death of her longtime lover, Leonardo, returned to her native land to visit her daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann), whom she hasn't seen for seven years, and her husband Viktor (Halvar Bjork), who is a minister. Ullmann is frumpish in specs with her hair up and her dress loose and ill-fitting. She is Ingrid's nerdish daughter who has been throughout her life entirely overshadowed by her glamorous mother. Eva has an unpleasant surprise for mom. Her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), who suffers from a crippling disease, perhaps muscular dystrophy, is on hand. Eva didn't tell her mother that Helena was now living with them. She says she didn't tell her because she knew that, if she had, Charlotte would not have come. And so we can guess that there are issues that will come out, issues between mother and daughter that have been festering for decades.

I got goose bumps seeing Ingrid Bergman as an elderly woman, and seeing the smooth, graceful style again, the elegant presence, a hint of the old gestures, the sly glances, the tentative smiles... It was really wonderful and at the same time disconcerting to examine her face (Sven Nykvist's intense close ups expose every inch of skin) and sigh and remember and understand the effect of the passing years. Ingrid is elegant but she has been robbed of her beauty so now we are able to see her character; unfortunately Ingmar's script allows little of the real Ingrid Bergman to appear. Hers is not a pleasant part to play. She is an entirely selfish and self-centered woman who has put her career before her family, but is unaware of what she has done. Eva seizes this opportunity to punish her mother by dredging up the neglect of her childhood to throw it in her mother's face (which perhaps explains why Charlotte hasn't been home in seven years). The sheer cold hatred that Eva expresses is enough to make the devil himself cringe. After a bit one begins to feel sorry for Charlotte, despite her failures as a mother, to have a daughter so unforgiving and so hateful.

Liv Ullmann is rather startling in this portrayal, with her penetrating eyes, her hard, Neandethalish forehead, the severe specs, and the uncompromising tone of her voice. Charlotte is ashamed and begs for forgiveness and tries to defend herself, but it is no use. Eva is too strong for her. This is one of the more intense scenes in cinema, and one not easily watched. Meanwhile in the upstairs bedroom and then in the hallway and down the staircase, Helena has heard them arguing and is pulling her crippled body over the floor, desperately trying to reach them. She cries out, "Mama! Mama!" but is not heard.

Viewers might want to pick sides between mother and daughter to say which is the more at fault. Indeed, it is hard to say who Bergman himself found more at fault. Perhaps there is no fault, only human weakness and stupidity. Such scenes are usually followed by a greater understanding, forgiveness and a willingness to start anew. However, although Charlotte wants that, it is not clear in Bergman's script that anything good will come of what has happened. Charlotte leaves, the minister returns to looking at his wife, (having overheard the argument, about which he has said nothing) and Eva writes a letter to her mother. It is not clear whether she wants to patch things up or to gain another opportunity to pick her mother to pieces. The viewer is left to decide.

Perhaps the best scene in the film is the one that follows dinner the night of Charlotte's arrival in which Eva plays the piano, a Chopin prelude. She has worked hard on it and hopes to please her mother. Alas, her play is not so good. After all, the mother is a genius, the daughter only the daughter of a genius. Charlotte sits down next to Eva and takes the keys to gently demonstrate how the piece should be played. We see and feel at once the inadequacy of the daughter in her mother's eyes. It is a great scene filmed with a tight focus on the faces of the two women. When Eva turns to stare at her mother, who is, of course, playing brilliantly with great finesse and touch, the expression on Eva's face, held for many long seconds, is unforgettable.

Not to second guess the master, but I would have liked to have seen the entire movie played in this, a more subtle key than that which followed. However when it comes to dysfunction and disease, Ingmar Bergman is unrestrained.

Ingrid Bergman was nominated for an academy award for best actress in this, her last feature film (she had already been diagnosed with cancer), but lost out to Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978).

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)