Only four actors have speaking parts in "Saraband," and the film is made up of 10 dialogues with two actors in each dialogue. The lead in the movie is played by Liv Ullmann, and I think she turns in yet another superb performance. She appears in six of the 10 dialogues, and she also delivers monologues in both the film's prologue and its epilogue.
In "Saraband," 63-year-old Marianne (Ullmann) goes to visit an ex-husband after not having seen him for three decades. He is Johan (Bergman regular Erland Josephson), a retired octogenarian who lives alone in a house out in the middle of nowhere. In a separate cottage on Johan's property reside his 61-year-old son Henrik (Börie Ahlstedt) and Henrik's 19-year-old daughter Karin (Julia Dufvenius).
Marianne soon realizes that Johan, Henrik and Karin constitute a deeply troubled family, and much of their trouble stems from the death two years earlier of Anna, Henrik's wife and Karin's mother. In the making-of documentary on the DVD, Bergman talks to the actors about the death of his wife of 24 years, Ingrid von Rosen, and I think "Saraband" in some ways reflects the filmmaker working through his feelings about her passing. In this connection, note the dedication "till Ingrid" ("to Ingrid") that comes up below the movie title in the opening credits.
As one would expect of a Bergman psychodrama, the mood throughout "Saraband" is somber, reinforced occasionally by the music of Bach, Bruckner and Brahms. But I see the film's ending as upbeat because we are left with hope. The 19-year-old Karin takes an action that makes her future look much brighter at the end of the movie than it did at the beginning. And as for the 63-year-old Marianne, she is changed by her visit in a way that is profoundly meaningful to her. In the Epilogue she tells us that "for the first time in our life together, I realized I felt that I was touching my daughter."
Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, who play Marianne and Johan in "Saraband," also portrayed superficially similar characters with those names in "Scenes From a Marriage" (1973). However, I'm not sure that Bergman intended for viewers to believe that Marianne and Johan are the same characters in the two films, and I don't think it matters much whether or not viewers believe that. What I see as important is that "Saraband" works very well as a standalone drama about a lonely woman on the cusp of old age, observing her elderly ex-husband, his son and his son's daughter struggle with the aftermath of the death of a beloved family member.
The only bonus material on the "Saraband" DVD is a 44-minute making-of documentary, and I found this fascinating. For me, there is something exhilarating in watching Bergman at age 84, going about making his first film in 19 years. The documentary captures a memorable moment where the young actress Julia Dufvenius has asked the venerable old director for another take of one of her scenes, and he says to her, "This business of retaking a scene over and over to get it perfect … I think it's a waste of emotion… But if you think it would be fun to do it again, we'll do it." She seems inclined to go with the retake, but ultimately signals her acquiescence to his judgment by telling him, "I trust you," and giving him a hug.
Below I've given all the details for the "Saraband" DVD.
DVD Details:
Release Date: January 10, 2006
Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1), Color
Feature Film Run Time: 1 Hour 52 Minutes
MPAA Rating: R for Brief Nudity, Language and a Violent Image
Swedish 2.0 Dolby Surround
English Subtitles
French Subtitles
Portuguese Subtitles
The Making of "Saraband" (44 min.)
