Film

Saraband (2003)

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Movie review

From Time Out New York

Erland Josephson, Börje Ahlstedt. An addendum to Bergman's epic battle of the sexes Scenes from a Marriage (1973), Saraband serves as a quietly moving coda to an extraordinary career. The affection Bergman feels for Scenes' Johan (Josephson) and Marianne (Ullmann), reunited after 30 years of estrangement, is as much a love letter to his actors as anything else, duplicating the earlier film's simple aesthetic to emphasize the nuances in their performances. And the second story line—involving Johan's grieving, possessive son (Ahlstedt), who refuses to let his own daughter live her life—proves that Bergman can still stage masterly psychodrama with little more than talking heads. No other director makes the act of conversation seem more compelling.

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