Review of Autumn Sonata (1978) by Jared F — 09 Jun 2007

Cold and empty. The leaves are falling from the trees as they've been falling in the lives of the tormented characters seen in this film. Empty words, empty memories, empty arguments. The camera hesitates to become intimate but always pushes itself outward, leaving the characters separate--framed by doors that act as barriers seldom broken.

This is the first time I've seen a color Bergman film but he employs color very skillfully--just as skillfully as he does black and white. The color seems restrained to pastel oranges and drab grays. It is autumn and all is hollow.

As Ingrid Bergman plays the Chopin piece for her daugther (Ullman) she stresses that it must be reserved--the piece must toy with despair but never fully embrace it. It is to be a struggle. And so this too is how Bergman tackled this film. It's never embraced, merely toyed with but it's so fitting for the characters who themselves are always merely toying with the thoughts of self-righteousness. Ullman is as cold to her husband as her mother was to her. And though he only wants to love her she, as she herself said, is incapable of love. She's distant--he watches her from a distance as she writes--expresses herself to paper as she doesn't know how to another human being. And he stands behind a door, watching--never able to fully know her. She too watched her mother behind a door as her mother toyed with the piano, pouring her emotions to ivory as she never could to another person.

This is beautiful. Bergman has such a skillful eye for composition. The pairing of he with Ingrid Bergman was an obvious, and brilliant one. But how Liv Ullman and Ingrid play off each other is what's truly impressive here.

Helena was perhaps the most tragic character. The way she lays helpless moaning for her mama--pleas that go unanswered, was so moving. Her illness makes her the only whole person--she's unable to act above her standing--she's bound to her disease and so she must be honest. In her eyes there is only love--love that's unrequited. She is pure.

A masterpiece. One of Bergman's finest. That man can do no wrong.