AUTUMN SONATA (70)

Directed by: Ingmar Bergman (1978)

Starring: Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Bergman, Lena Nyman, Halver Bjork

The Pitch: A famous concert pianist visits her daughter, whom she hasn't seen in many years.

Theo Sez: Essence of Bergman, which isn't necessarily a good thing ; he doesn't even seem to have bothered turning this into a film, actually, as if bored and impatient with the conventions of visual storytelling (little wonder he retired 5 years later). There's astonishingly crude things here, exposition-wise : characters blurt out vital information ("As you know, Erik drowned when he was four years old") and think out loud when they're by themselves, soliloquising as if onstage ("Why did I come here? What did I hope to find?") - it's wall-to-wall talk, consistent from beginning to end, yet it doesn't feel so much stylised as indifferent, as if Bergman had simply poured his thoughts out on paper and told his actors to get on with it. Fortunately they do, aided by Sven Nykvist's peerless compositions (and unexpectedly full colours) : Bergman is magnetic but Ullmann's big speech, when she finally gets to tell her mother off, is breathtaking - she's so consumed by hatred she can barely speak, rants at Bergman in a series of gasps, drawing breath sharply then rolling on for minutes on end (I don't think I've ever seen such an extended display of high-pitched emotion). Can't really call it a character study, for the characters are pretty thin - mother cold and selfish, daughter victimised and traumatised - but there's a cramped intensity about it, a sense of raw emotion at close quarters that lingers in the mind ; plus, how many other films reveal characterisation via contrasting renditions of a Chopin prelude? They really don't make them like this anymore.