Autumn Sonata

Autumn Sonata (Hostsonaten) (1978)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Ingmar Bergman

Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Lena Nyman, Halvar Bjork, Marianne Aminoff

From: A few different European companies in a few different European countries

Y'know... I need to see even more movies from this Bergman guy.

This was another DVR viewing, recording last week off of Turner Classic Movies when the first night of fall they played films w/ “autumn” in their title. I've seen a few Ingmar Bergman pictures before and they were all at least very good. The high ratings this had plus the talent involved had me intrigued. Besides Ignmar stalwart Liv Ullman, there's Ingrid Bergman... at least at the beginning, many films fans probably confused her with the Swedish director. Not only was it appropriate for them to make a movie together, it was something she wanted to do professionally for a long time. As Ingmar was feuding with the Swedish government over tax issues, he made and filmed this out of his home country... yet it's still in Swedish and features Swedish actors.

At first the plot seems simple enough: The father of Eva (Ullmann) has recently passed away. She and her husband invite her famous concert pianist mom Charlotte (Ingrid) to her house for a few days. The first act establishes that they have a frosty relationship with each other; mom was preoccupied w/ work when Eva was growing up. Then the scab keeps on getting pulled back more and more—and it is shown just how broken things are between them. Both have their personal demons with affect themselves which has a major impact on how they interact with each other. Then there's the fact that Charlotte has another daughter, who is disabled and Eva is the one that takes care of her.

Autumn Sonata is a masterclass in acting; the rest of the small cast is fine but the focus is on the two leads & they are both outstanding in their roles. While I've seen both Ullman and Ingrid in other things, they were never better than the performances they gave here. For a movie that mainly takes place in Eva's house and much of this is shot in close-up, it is enthralling due to the premise, the actors and the director doing such a marvelous job. There's acres of great dialogue and while it is an incredibly bleak movie where a mother and daughter reveal their worst faults to each other and their problems w/ each other are shown to be progressively worse the further in the movie you go... it is so well done and such a movie experience it deserves the highest possible rating from me. The relationship between me and both my parents had some troubles too-at least it was not as fundamentally flawed as what was shown between Eva & Charlotte.

After last night, it is clear to me that I need to watch more from Bergman (both of them) and Ullmann. Even if they won't all be 5 star experiences like this was, those should still be rewarding journeys.