BEFORE: Technically, this is the last Ingmar Bergman film, as in something that was made for theatrical release. It's not the end of my chain, because tomorrow's film is another miniseries made for Swedish TV that was cut down a bit and released theatrically in other countries. So I'm nearly at the end, just one more marathon viewing session tomorrow and then I can move on to other topics. I've really had enough of the Swedish people and their complicated problems.
Liv Ullmann carries over again from "Scenes from a Marriage".
THE PLOT: A married daughter who longs for her mother's love is visited by the latter, a successful concert pianist.
AFTER: Yeah, it's different details, but really, it's more of the same. A famous pianist who often went out on tour and neglected her family for years goes to visit her now-married daughter, and everything eventually gets discussed in a blow-out argument. The mother had numerous affairs while on the road, of course, and at least one was a long-term one, so I'm not sure if this is a statement about Swedish people, or famous people who write their own relationship rules, but either way, I guess Bergman himself is sort of represented in the mother character.
The elder daughter, Eva, has found her place in the world, she's written two books and is married to a village pastor, who longs to tell her how much he loves her, but for some reason he's been unable to find the words. Eva, meanwhile, has never felt loved by anyone, and is still dealing with the fact that her son drowned when he was four years old. Eva takes care of her younger sister, Helena, who is disabled and partially paralyzed - when their mother agreed to visit, she didn't know that her disabled daughter was also living there. If she had known, she probably wouldn't have come. As a token, the mother gives Helena her wristwatch - yeah, that's probably just what she needed.
The mother sleeps in the guest room, and focuses on moving her investments around in her portfolio, also considering gifting one of her cars to Eva, then deciding against it. She awakes in the middle of the night as if she's being choked - I guess being around her daughters is having a negative effect on her? Some people just weren't cut out to be parents, it seems.
Everything then comes to a head when Eva and her mother attempt to reminisce about the "good times", only to discover that there weren't any. Even during the two years when Charlotte wasn't on a concert tour, and tried to be a good mother to her daughters, that made Eva's life even more miserable than when her mother wasn't around. Her mother made her dress a certain way and cut her hair, get braces to improve her teeth, etc.
It's too much for Charlotte, she calls a male companion and leaves the next day by train. Eva then writes a letter to her mother and apologizes, which her husband reads (In Bergman films people always seem to be reading each other's letters, or their diaries, it seems to be the only way the director is able to tell the audience about his character's thoughts...). Eva visits the grave of her son, Eva's husband is unable to calm down the disabled sister, and Charlotte talks about her paralyzed daughter by asking "Why couldn't she die?" Well, I suppose that would have made things easier for Charlotte in the long run.
Basically, it's another full round today of "Why are Swedish people so messed up?". The theory put forward here is that a mother can't be happy unless her daughter is also miserable.
Also starring Ingrid Bergman (last seen in "Indiscreet"), Lena Nyman, Halvar Björk, Gunnar Björnstrand (last seen in "Persona"), Erland Josephson (also carrying over from "Scenes from a Marriage"), Georg Lokkeberg, Mimi Pollak, Linn Ullmann (last seen in "Cries and Whispers").
RATING: 4 out of 10 childhood anxieties
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