Saraband

[poliphilo]

Ingmar Bergman retired from film-making over twenty years ago.

Actually it was only ever a semi-retirement. He kept on writing screenplays and directing for television.

Now one of his TV projects has been given a cinema release. He says that Saraband will be his last film ever (yeah, but we've heard that one before.)

I was expecting something autumnal and valedictory. Bergman's Tempest. Not a bit of it. Saraband is as raw and horrid as anything he did back in the 60s.

Incest, love and hate, the old feeding off the young.

The critics are divided. A masterpiece or the mechanical reworking of old themes? I lean towards "masterpiece".

There are four actors. They're all good, but Borje Ahlstedt as the vampiric father is quite extraordinary.

Comments

[ragingnoodles.livejournal.com]

My local art house theater might open Saraband, they don't have it on their schedule list but have been saying they might show it and have posters up at the theater.

This is the film I've been anticipating the most this year.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"This is the film I've been anticipating the most this year."

Me too.

And it lived up to my expectations. It's full-strength Bergman. Someone reviewer wrote that they don't make films like this any more. To which I would reply that no-one, except Bergman himself, ever did.