Word: sarabands
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...Bergman, who made Saraband two years ago and turns 87 on Thursday, is secure enough not to care what people think of him, or to fret that they may not think of him at all. Neither do I. I've been a Bergman admirer since the 1950s, as I will itemize ad infinitum in my next column. So I welcome his return. No matter how severe the emotional landscape, his palpable presence behind the camera, and the force he still bring to a wrestling match with his demons, are causes for celebration. The Master has returned, in triumph...
...Saraband, which Bergman shot on digital video (and which will play in theaters only in that format), is not really a sequel to Scenes from a Marriage. It uses the two main figures from the earlier film to explore new relationships: Johan's with his son Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt) and Henrik's with his teenage daughter Karin (Julia Dufvenius). All three have been handicapped by desolation over the death of Henrik's much-loved wife Anna. Henrik, a failed musician, has transferred his ambition to Karin, a promising cellist. When Anna was alive, Henrik was lost in love...
...window; it is the visual counterpart of the organ chord that greeted Marianne as she entered. Later there's a privileged moment when Karin is told of a career opportunity and the ecstasy of anticipation briefly floods her face, as radiant as that sunlit church. Bergman keeps energizing Saraband with such touchstones; he builds the edifice of the film on this latticework. And these superb actors - three veteran colleagues, one (Dufvenius) a newcomer in the great tradition of Bergman ingenues - give the characters sinew and subtlety...
...totality is an amazingly vigorous achievement - and not just for an old man. (Only the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who at 96 has completed 10 feature films in the past decade, has outlasted Bergman.) Saraband is a film worthy of being counted among Bergman's strongest. Which means among the finest there are, or are likely to be, for a while...
...seem ghoulish to go fishing for real-life connections between the sad characters in Saraband and Bergman's own turbulent domestic life. But his films are so personal, and he has been so outspoken about writing his emotional autobiography on the screen, that such expeditions are inevitable. So know that Saraband is dedicated to Ingrid, Bergman?s fifth wife, who died in 1995; she likely inspired the film's much-mourned Anna. Bergman's relationships with his children, especially his sons, were often stormy. One child he did feel close to, as Johan does to Karin in the film...