Product Description

After their divorce johan & marianne lost touch. Johan now retired has withdrawn to his grandparents summerhouse. Here he leads a solitary life with his books. Marianne who is still a practicing attorney decides to look up johan. After 32 years of separation they begin several intense weeks together. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 05/23/2006 Starring: Liv Ullman Erland Johnson Run time: 111 minutes Rating: R Director: Ingmar Bergman

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38789 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2006-01-10
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, German, Swedish
• Subtitled in: English, French, Portuguese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.com
You know you're back in Bergman country when a character begins speaking to the camera right from the start. In the prologue to Saraband, which was made for Swedish television, Marianne (Liv Ullmann) recounts the changes that have taken place since Scenes From a Marriage, the miniseries-turned-feature that introduced the central couple. Johan (Erland Josephson) has retired from academia, while she continues to practice family law. Since splitting up for good, they haven't seen each other in over 30 years. Marianne decides it's time to reconnect and makes plans to visit Johan at his remote cottage. While they catch up, she gets to know his estranged son, Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt), and beloved granddaughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius), who are staying in the guest house. Both are still reeling from the death of Henrik's wife, Anna, two years ago. Although she never appears--she's represented by a portrait of Bergman's late wife, Ingrid, to whom the film is dedicated--Anna's ghost haunts them all (even Marianne, who never knew her). Divided into 10 parts plus the prologue and epilogue, Saraband looks more like a play than a film, which is not necessarily a drawback (it's in keeping with the "scenes" of the original series). The focus is on the characters and their words. They could be anywhere at any time; their problems are personal yet universal. For two hours, the outside world does not exist. In the complete universe Bergman has created for them, it doesn't need to. As much a love letter to his wife as to his muse, Ullmann--who has rarely been better--Bergman has stated that Saraband will be his final work. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

From The New Yorker
In the film that Ingmar Bergman, now eighty-seven, has declared will be his last, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson reprise their roles from Bergman's 1973 "Scenes from a Marriage." Marianne, a sixty-three-year-old lawyer, drops in on her ex-husband Johan, an eighty-six-year-old scholar living in rural isolation, whom she has not seen in thirty-two years. Nostalgia quickly dissipates as Marianne is drawn into Johan's titanic battle with his son Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt), a widowed music professor, as conflict over Henrik's possessive plans for his teen-age daughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius), lays bare decades of buried resentments. Johan, an egomaniacal monster whose great charm derives from the force of his unyielding will, might live and laugh mockingly forever-at the expense of those who are drawn to his brutality. At times, the raw power of the emotions is almost unbearable; the director conjures them through somewhat obvious theatrical devices. Nonetheless, his stark contrivances distill a lifetime of bitter wisdom.-Richard Brody
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Sad end for master
In 2003 Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman made his last film ever- although he's said that before, some two decades after his prior farewell to film with Fanny And Alexander. He should have never come back after that valedictory, for his effort, Saraband, a supposed sequel to his 1973 Swedish television smash Scenes From A Marriage, is a bad film- the worst I've yet to see from Bergman, and a bad film by any measure. His other `bad' films, Cries And Whispers and The Serpent's Egg, at least had some redeeming features, as the former was overall, a good solid film, while the latter showed some potential near the end. Saraband, by contrast, is an utter void, and takes all of Bergman's worst tendencies, shoves them all together in one film, recycles the worst parts of a half dozen other of his films, and the concoction is godawful, starting with the abysmal writing. I believe Ingmar Bergman, as a screenwriter, had a strong claim to being the greatest published writer of the 20th Century. Period. But, this work is bad, really bad, not only as a screenplay and a film, but most especially as a sequel to the great Scenes From A Marriage. And it starts with the bad writing.
First off, before I delve into that, however, all the major critics are wrong about this film- in their qualitative assessment as well as its ties to Scenes From A Marriage. This is in no way shape nor form a sequel to that film because the two older lead characters, Johan and Marianne (Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman), while sharing superficial qualities in common with the earlier film's qualities, are clearly not the same characters, just as one has to posit that the characters in the tv miniseries version and the shorter film version of Scenes From A Marriage are different characters because they do not go through the exact same things, and key plot elements in one are not in the other. Think of them as parallel universes with slight differences. That contemporary critics miss the obvious in their arts reviews no longer astounds me, it only saddens me. There are too many key differences, however, to be overlooked. If that is so, then the two main characters in this film are even farther removed from the Scenes From A Marriage universe. Yes, they have the same first names, are a divorced couple, and had two daughters together, split up over Johan's similarly named lover- Paula, and work in similar professions to their younger doppelgangers, but all other similarities end there.... What made Scenes From A Marriage a great film was its writing, alone, and that Bergman never condescended. He let his viewers fill in the blanks they knew of from their own lives to background the scenes he showed within. In this film Bergman does not trust his audience, and condescends relentlessly. This is the sort of film that any producer worth their salt should have nixed, for it is an embarrassment to both them and to a great artist who is manifestly past his prime. Real greatness is knowing both what art to create and how, and what art to just leave in the bad idea pile. Bergman manifestly has lost that ability to discern, and this film's greatest flaw is, indeed, that it was ever made. It showcases all of his prior worst tendencies without a dram of his former redeeming greatness. It is forced, overwrought, trite, poorly written and acted, and just plain dull. Bergman leaves no melodramatic angles unused, and all to poor effect- death, suicide, insanity, incest; even Henrik's supposed life or death weighing on his abused daughter. Bergman has, like a child, finally ripped the zit off his face that was annoying him so long, and, with the pimple off, exposed a good deal of the red pulpy flesh beneath, and it ain't pretty!
As for the DVD features, there are only a few trailers, a long making of featurette that, unfortunately, is not well structured nor insightful, and the DVD is not dubbed. It only is subtitled, albeit in crisp gold lettering. Saraband is an unfortunate end to one of the greatest careers in human arts, but worst of all shows the utter bankruptcy of most contemporary arts criticism, in that the critics too often excuse what an art lacks as if it has it in full, merely because of the artist's prior works or reputation. By allowing great artists' bad work a pass it sets up a precedent, so that the critic is not singled out for having shamed themselves by `attacking' a master, that tells lesser artists that they do not have to strive either, and thus the downward cycle starts, and society ends up with reams of rotting garbage as bad art, and no one willing to pinpoint the stench. Welcome to the 21st Century world of art, and be thankful last century's Ingmar Bergman never had to deal with it, lest many of his greatest works would have never been made!

Dance of death
Bergman was a devoted admirer of Strindberg, and as a theatre director produced several of Strindberg's plays. One of the best from Strindberg was "Dance of Death," a two-part drama that explores the tangled webs of hatred and dependency that close relationships can breed. I don't think it's too much to see "Saraband," Bergman's final--and one of his best--film as a dance-of-death themed exploration. It's also the case, of course, that a "sarabande" is a dance. In the context of the film, the title also refers to a piece from Bach's 5th cello suite which one of the characters, Karin, plays.

The four actors in "Saraband"--Johan (Erland Josephson), Marianne (Liv Ullmann), Henrik (Borje Ahlstedt), and Karin (Julia Dufvenius)--are caught in relationships which, although life-craving, are in fact life-destroying. Karin, the daughter of Henrik, is a budding musician to whom the widowed and grieving Henrik poisonously clings (with just a hint of incest thrown in). Henrik, a 60-year old failure, is the son of Johan, who treats him with an icy indifference that's absolutely chilling (at one point, Johan tells Henrik that so far as he's concerned, his son simply doesn't exist). Johan and Marianne, the old couple first encountered in "Scenes from a Marriage," are both alone in their old age, but cling rather desperately to one another in one of the film's final scenes, as though they know that the night is closing in.

If there's any hope from the dance of death that they and we must perform, it's represented by Karin's resolution to break from her father, even with the bitter knowledge that their separation will destroy him, and the moment of recognition that Marianne's adult but schizophrenic daughter displays in the film's closing scene. But these two moments of grace must be taken for what they are. The first brings tragedy, the second is fleeting.

This film, beautiful to watch and hear, acted with skill and directed by the 87-year old Bergman with a master's touch, is without doubt one of Bergman's very best. It's also his swansong, which makes the message even more poignant.

The follow-up and dramatic life of Johan and his son
Saraband, Bergman's last film, is about a family destroyed with hostility, obsession, attempted suicide, pain, hatred and music. As a follow-up to the successful Scenes from A Marriage, 30 years ago. Marianne, a lawyer, visits her wealthy through an inheritance, ex-husband Johan, 86, who lives in the forest near the lake. During the marriage, he was unfaithful. Living nearby is Johan's 60ish son Henrik, who heads an orchestra and his 19-year old daughter, a celloist, Karin, who is taught by her father. Johan and Henrik despise each other.

Henrik's wife died two years ago and he is miserable. He has an unhealthy obsession, in other words, an incestual relationship with his daughter. Bergman clearly leaves that impression as they sleep in the same bed. Karin is the recipient of his pain.

Marianne encounters the sadness of Karin, they share talks openly, and Marianne learns the hostility of Henrik of his father. Through a letter Karin discovered, she learns about Anna, the wife who died.

A memorable quote:
Henrik speaking to Marianne of his father: "I hate him in every dimension of the word. I hate him so much I'd happily watch him die of some horrible disease. I'd visit him daily and take note of his torment down to the last breath."

The movie is set in chapters, uniquely played out. Most scenes call for two persons and no one else enters, it becomes a closed set without intrusions. The sets were manufactured with great detail. And Bergman favors the close-up shots. The film is lengthy, quiet, and absorbing.

A special treat is to view the master at work in The Making of Saraband, and moreso, you will see readings by the actors. This treat offers great insight into Bergman's work. Enjoy! Rizzo