Autumn Sonata (1978)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Film Review

Following on from Cries and Whispers (1972) and Scenes from a Marriage (1973), Autumn Sonata (1978) offers another intimate portrait of a close human relationship that is in the process of disintegration as bitterness, recrimination and guilt assert themselves.  On this occasion, Bergman deals with one of the most complex and indefinable of relationships, that between a mother and her daughter.  Again, the thing that drives the conflict to its messy resolution is love, or rather the lack of it, that tortured insatiable nucleus of good and evil that lies at the heart of every human soul.

As in many of Bergman's films, the principal characters in Autumn Sonata are polar opposites which are gradually revealed to be two aspects of the same whole.  The two women in this film could hardly be more different - one is the outgoing, glamorous pianist Charlotte, the other, her daughter Eva, is an emotionally repressed parson's wife.  Charlotte's prodigious sensitivity for music exposes an inner lack of human feeling, whereas Eva is less accomplished musically but has a bosom filled with real emotions.  Outwardly, Eva appears even more austere than her mother, but this surface impression is bearly skin deep.  Eva is like a pressure valve, holding back a lifetime of pent-up negative emotions that have been constantly nurtured.  Charlotte is expression without soul; Eva is a soul that cannot express itself.  Only by coming together do the two women achieve a sense of oneness which allows the truth to come out, releasing the terrible therapy of catharsis that will enable them both to go on living.

Autumn Sonata is one of Ingmar Bergman's bleakest and simplest films, but it is also one of his most compelling. Although marred by one or two needless plot contrivances, the film conveys the tragedy of a loveless mother-daughter relationship with immense truth and poignancy.  In the unforgettable sequence where Eva breaks down and reveals to her mother the anguish that has ruined her life (and it's obvious that she is as much to blame as her mother), the spectator is subjected to one of the most harrowing scenes in any Bergman film.  It's like watching a bandage being removed, slowly, from a horrible, festering wound.  As one layer of fabric is removed, we glimpse another which carries the impression of an even greater wound.  On and on, a relentless torrent of misery and recrimination bursting from a bitter heart...

Yet it is not only Eva we pity, but also her mother, who realises the extent to which she has failed, and must go on failing.  The outburst achieves nothing but to allow the two women to realise who they are - a child who has made herself a martyr for want of love (and in doing so fails to see the love of the man she married), and a mother who is unwilling to sacrifice her career for any meaningful human relationship.  There is no atonement, no happy ending, but both Eva and Charlotte are somehow improved by their encounter, both have achieved some kind of closure and can face the future with equanimity.

Playing the part of Charlotte is the legendary film actress Ingrid Bergman, the first and only occasion she worked with her director namesake.  One of her finest performances, this was to be her last film appearance before her death, from cancer in 1982. Opposite her was Liv Ullmann, a favourite of Ingmar Bergman (she was given  a leading role in nine of his films), who brings great emotional intensity and pathos to her portrayal, a perfect contrast with Ingrid Bergman's more subtle interpretation of a woman in crisis.  The impact of Autumn Sonata is as much down to the mesmeric contributions of these two great actresses as it is to Ingmar Bergman's masterful direction and extraordinary insight into the human condition.

Film Synopsis

After a period of separation, Eva invites her mother, Charlotte, a world class pianist, to spend a few days with her and her husband Victor, a parish priest.  The joy of the reunion is short-lived, however.  The rift begins when Charlotte discovers that her other daughter Helena is in the house.  Years before, when Helena fell ill, Charlotte had her put into a nursing home.  Now, in the terminal phase of her illness, Helena is being cared for by Eva.  Past experiences begin to resurface and culminate in an explosive showdown for Eva and her mother...