AUTUMN SONATA

Ingmar Bergman shot "Autumn Sonata" in ravishing colour, (Sven Nykvist again was his DoP), and set it in the present but it may as well have been in black and white and set a hundred or so years ago since this is one of his most rigorous films, seen almost entirely in close-up. It's about the relationships between a mother and her daughter, (two daughters if you count the girl in near vegetative state upstairs), and the great and painful chasm that exists between them. The mother is a great concert pianist, poised, self-assured and frostier than any ice maiden and she is played by Ingrid Bergman, working with the director for the first time and giving a magnificent performance. The daughter is the mousy, timorous wife of a vicar until one extraordinary night she roars and pours out all the bile she has inside her and she is played superbly by Liv Ullmann.

To say that the characters in Bergman's films don't speak or act the way 'real' people do is like saying Shakespeare's characters don't behave like people do in 'real' situations. It doesn't matter a damn; as with Shakespeare, Bergman's characters bare their souls to us and this greatest of actor's directors draws performances from his players that go beyond mere acting allowing us to get under their skins and inside their heads.

There are a number of characters in this piece but most of them are glimpsed only in the background. Fundamentally this is a sonata for two people and both Bergman and Ullmann have seldom been better. It was Bergman who won all the awards and got the Oscar nomination but Ullmann, too, was equally deserving of recognition. If it isn't quite the masterpiece it might have been, (there are times it does feel a bit schematic and even predictable), it is nevertheless a major work of art and an essential work in both Bergman canons.