Autumn Sonata (1978)

Typical introspective Bergman film with exceptional performances by Liv Ullman and Ingrid Bergman.

The latter plays a famous concert pianist visiting her daughter after a long absence. Both harbor a mutual hope for reconciliation from their estranged past but the emotional baggage carried by each may be too much to overcome.

The film is beautifully photographed and the script is engrossing but it is extremely "wordy" even for a Bergman film. There is lots of voice over narration, lots of flashbacks, lots of static dialogue, and lots of static monologue (sometimes with the character talking directly to the camera.) The on focus mother-daughter relationship is sad in itself but the overall gloom is layered on pretty thick - loss of parent, loss of husband, loss of child, bad parenting, absentee parenting, repressed anger, forced abortion, disabled child, spastic cerebral palsy, disgust, hatred, emotional detachment and so on......

This is the perfect movie to watch if you're a psychoanalyst but for the casual viewer it's pretty depressing stuff. A lot of reviews give this film very high marks but this is not grade "A" Bergman. It is superbly crafted and well acted but it comes across more like a filmed stage play than a movie.

Fmovies: Ingrid Bergman as Charlotte, is a concert pianist visiting her daughter Eva, played by Liv Ullmann. They have not seen each other for 7 years. Charlotte's other daughter, Helena, is also living with Eva. Helena has a crippling disease, and at one time was living in some type of institution.

At first, everything is fine, as mother and daughter do their best to make each other as comfortable as possible. When left alone, they wonder about each other's expectations, but continue on.

Charlotte is a very talented, but completely self-absorbed woman. Eva is a frump. A sweet frump, but a frump nonetheless. At first, there are a few catty remarks exchanged, but the turning point is when Eva offers to play the piano for her mother. She works as hard as she can, but the music sounds contrived and unmusical. When she asks her mother to play the piece for her, Charlotte does the one thing that signaled to me that "the war was on". She laid down the music rack on the piano. (When pianists have a piece memorized, they do that to show the audience that they have no need for the printed music.) Charlotte, of course, plays beautifully (she could play no other way). However, the damage is done. Mother is successful, and daughter is a failure. Although the scene is dramatically pivotal, it did produce one of the few really funny lines in the movie. After Charlotte finishes playing, she says, "Well, I HAVE been playing these Chopin pieces for 37 years."

Charlotte's self-absorption is pretty amazing when you realize that her ill daughter was in an institution, then moved to Eva's house, and she had no idea that it happened. There are some other clues in the early part of the story that indicate she probably wished that her daughter Helena would have died long ago. Charlotte can be totally charming to her public, her agents, her fans... but has very little to offer her own children.

Eva is so desperate for love and affection from her mother that she seemingly misses the fact that her husband loves her very much. When Charlotte is awakened by a nightmare, she and Eva begin a late-night talk. And that is when the real nightmare begins.

At times this film is painful to watch, and at times is emotionally draining. Sven Nykvyst's cinematography is stunning. I thought this especially so in the flashback sequences, and in the scene close to the end of the film when Eva is in the cemetery.

Although not as perfect as The Seventh Seal, or Wild Strawberries, Autumn Sonata still has much to say, whether we feel comfortable listening to it or not.

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 overhear

Autumn Sonata fmovies. 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 ****)

The acting of Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ulmann is absolutely spell binding and while Katherine Hepburn may have been accused of portraying the emotions for A to B there is no doubt that these two actors can portray the emotions from A to Z and beyond. When I watch a film in a foreign language I find myself studying facial expressions and body language very closely, not surprisingly as, with the lack of understanding I am more dependant of visual cues. However such scrutiny often uncovers failings and weaknesses – not here.

The cinematography id also first class, the colours, tones and lighting are all superb and enhance, never detract.

This is only the second of Bergman's films I have seen (the first being Fanny and Alexander) and what I have noticed is that while many films give to the viewer and I feel as if the emotions are a natural response, I felt with the Bergman films, particularly this one, as if the films have taken something out of me, as if the emotions have been extracted against my will. This may sound over the top and rather florid but is a genuine statement. I also have to say that what the two films have in common is that they were both spellbinding and like a good book that just can't be put down, the films gripped me and wouldn't let go even for a minute.

Ingmar Bergman claimed, in the DVD-introduction, that Ingrid Bergman told him that she wanted to make a film with him. The result was, and still is, a cinematographic masterpiece that compromises neither with style or emotion to get the message out. Ingrid Bergman is simply astonishing in the role as the world famous singer that after years of neglecting her children returns to find her oldest daughter full of hatred towards her. A hatred she doesn't understand, somewhere inside being a child needing attention herself. The tension between mother and daughter is building up, at first it is jolly but soon we see cracks in the surface of both Ingrid Bergman's glamorous Charlotte and Liv Ullman's quiet and suppressed Eva.

"Höstsonaten" is beautiful, but it takes its toll on the viewer. If you aren't prepared for it, it can be an emotional roller coaster ride that leaves you chocked when its over. The beauty and the ugliness of the human soul, ripped apart by anger, disease and sadness, is clear in this work of art.