Word: bergmans
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Sensible, sixtyish Marianne (Liv Ullmann) is getting exasperated with her cranky, octogenarian ex-husband Johan (Erland Josephson). "Sometimes," she says, "you act like a forgotten character from some stupid old film." That moment in Ingmar Bergman's new film Saraband will stir recollections in viewers who are Marianne's age--or maybe Johan's--since the two characters and the same actors appeared three decades ago in Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage. But to the majority of 'plex patrons, it is the Swedish filmmaker who is the forgotten...
Once the king of the art-film jungle, Bergman has been consigned to a venerated but remote corner of the cultural zoo. In his cage, three foreign-language Oscars (for The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Fanny and Alexander) gathered dust as the ancient creature sat still as a statue...
...lion has roared back to life with one last sublime work. Saraband, the first film Bergman has directed for theatrical release in 20 years (he announced his retirement after Fanny), is a chamber piece: four characters, 10 dialogues. Yet Bergman, who turns 87 this month, gives the story such vigor and rigor, so much emotional bile and spilled blood, that it would shame a much younger director. Here is no mild afterthought to which a critic nods indulgently. This is a testament of love and anguish from the man who used to be called the greatest living filmmaker. Well, dammit...
...Bergman's need to scream out his fears and hatreds is also evidence of a weird vitality. His gift was always to find universal significance in his private agonies. In a 60-year film career, he has picked at the scabs of his psyche, turning wounds into eloquent words, nightmares into indelible images...
...actors--especially Tim Robbins, as a daft homeowner--could you please stop hyperacting? This is a monster movie, not a Bergman film. The monsters are pretty cool: hood-headed, dog-faced critters that suggest the Alien beast mixed with one of the nastier Gremlins. They, and the tricks Spielberg uses to display the devastation they wreak, are the show. A splendid horror show it is, except when three little people...