That was an excellent one.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Saraband bares no resemblance to Scenes from a Marriage. Even after their marriage ended, Liv Ullmann's Marianne and Erland Josephson's Johan remained central to Scene from a Marriage. In Saraband, they feel displaced. They are like set pieces in a drama about a widowed father and his daughter. The story about the father and daughter is the only substance in the film. (Unfortunately, their acting ability is not as substantial as that of Ullmann and Josephson.) The only pretense for Marianne and Johan is the premise that the father is Johan's son, and the daughter Johan's granddaughter. Imagine an installment of the Ocean's franchise, let's call it Ocean's Fourteen, in which the original cast sit around enjoying their golden years while a younger group of unknown thieves plan a heist. The film is directed by Soderberg and resembles some of his early films, but bares little or no resemblance to the Ocean's franchise. I wouldn't excuse this indiscretion from Hollywood, why should I excuse it in any other context? Ingmar Bergman is one of my favourite directors, and Scenes from a Marriage is one of my favourite of his efforts. I wanted to enjoy Saraband, to appreciate his last effort. But I couldn't. To feign enjoyment would be a discredit to the master's early work.

As one goes through the Bergman canon (I've seen all the films that are available to me) I continue to embrace them. I don't know why. There is enough angst to light a city in his work and this one, originally made for television, is no exception. A woman, Marianne, goes to see her ex-husband, Jonas, after thirty some years. He is a self centered, cruel man who has attained great wealth. They strike up a conversation and she stays for a time in his house. He has a son, Heinrich, who is a failure in the eyes of his father, even though he is an accomplished cellist and organist. He loved the old man at one time and was pushed away for the most trivial of reason. Heinrich has a daughter, Karen, who is also a cellist and since the death of her mother, two years previously, has been under the constant thumb of her father. He is about as needy as one can be and forces her to stay lest he do harm to himself. I could go into great detail concerning these people. but I will leave that to you, the viewer. As with so many Bergman characters, honest discourse is nearly impossible for them. The loving an fragile are ground into the turf. This was Bergman's swan song and he didn't back off from the blackness of human nature.

In 2003 Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman made his last film ever- although he's said that before, some two decades after his prior farewell to film with Fanny And Alexander. He should have never come back after that valedictory, for his effort, Saraband, a supposed sequel to his 1973 Swedish television smash Scenes From A Marriage, is a bad film- the worst I've yet to see from Bergman, and a bad film by any measure. His other 'bad' films, Cries And Whispers and The Serpent's Egg, at least had some redeeming features, as the former was overall, a good solid film, while the latter showed some potential near the end. Saraband, by contrast, is an utter void, and takes all of Bergman's worst tendencies, shoves them all together in one film, recycles the worst parts of a half dozen other of his films, and the concoction is godawful, starting with the abysmal writing. I believe Ingmar Bergman, as a screenwriter, had a strong claim to being the greatest published writer of the 20th Century. Period. But, this work is bad, really bad, not only as a screenplay and a film, but most especially as a sequel to the great Scenes From A Marriage. And it starts with the bad writing.First off, before I delve into that, however, all the major critics are wrong about this film- in their qualitative assessment as well as its ties to Scenes From A Marriage. This is in no way shape nor form a sequel to that film because the two older lead characters, Johan and Marianne (Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman), while sharing superficial qualities in common with the earlier film's qualities, are clearly not the same characters, just as one has to posit that the characters in the TV miniseries version and the shorter film version of Scenes From A Marriage are different characters because they do not go through the exact same things, and key plot elements in one are not in the other. Think of them as parallel universes with slight differences. That contemporary critics miss the obvious in their arts reviews no longer astounds me, it only saddens me. There are too many key differences, however, to be overlooked. If that is so, then the two main characters in this film are even farther removed from the Scenes From A Marriage universe. Yes, they have the same first names, are a divorced couple, and had two daughters together, split up over Johan's similarly named lover- Paula, and work in similar professions to their younger doppelgangers, but all other similarities end there…. What made Scenes From A Marriage a great film was its writing, alone, and that Bergman never condescended. He let his viewers fill in the blanks they knew of from their own lives to background the scenes he showed within. In this film Bergman does not trust his audience, and condescends relentlessly. This is the sort of film that any producer worth their salt should have nixed, for it is an embarrassment to both them and to a great artist who is manifestly past his prime. Real greatness is knowing both what art to create and how, and what art to just leave in the bad idea pile. Bergman manifestly has lost that ability to discern, and this film's greatest flaw is, indeed, that it was ever made. It showcases all of his prior worst tendencies without a dram of his former redeeming greatness. It is forced, overwrought, trite, poorly written and acted, and just plain dull. Bergman leaves no melodramatic angles unused, and all to poor effect- death, suicide, insanity, incest; even Henrik's supposed life or death weighing on his abused daughter. Bergman has, like a child, finally ripped the zit off his face that was annoying him so long, and, with the pimple off, exposed a good deal of the red pulpy flesh beneath, and it ain't pretty!As for the DVD features, there are only a few trailers, a long making of featurette that, unfortunately, is not well structured nor insightful, and the DVD is not dubbed. It only is subtitled, albeit in crisp gold lettering. Saraband is an unfortunate end to one of the greatest careers in human arts, but worst of all shows the utter bankruptcy of most contemporary arts criticism, in that the critics too often excuse what an art lacks as if it has it in full, merely because of the artist's prior works or reputation. By allowing great artists' bad work a pass it sets up a precedent, so that the critic is not singled out for having shamed themselves by 'attacking' a master, that tells lesser artists that they do not have to strive either, and thus the downward cycle starts, and society ends up with reams of rotting garbage as bad art, and no one willing to pinpoint the stench. Welcome to the 21st Century world of art, and be thankful last century's Ingmar Bergman never had to deal with it, lest many of his greatest works would have never been made!

There are movies whose main interest is to explore the raw and the subtler nuances that modulate the experience of human interaction, and that truly push the envelope as far as the intimate rendering of a relationship, be it romantic, family-oriented or something else, with great insight and a thoughtful approach to the dynamics of deep emotional reach. Such works of art rely and directly depend on a somewhat delicate coordination between a tactful director and a solid acting crew that is capable to translating the intricate web of connections as a believable, albeit dramatic, study on emotional responses.All this and more can be found in Saraband, Bergman's final work and a stunning adieu it is. In this movie, F. Scott Fitzgerald's statement is taken to the extreme: Character IS plot. Dealing with the highly volatile intercession of relationships, Saraband is about one's love for music, one's coming to term with adulthood, one's reckoning of the past, a portrait of loss, pain and anguish that are not sweetened to better accommodate the viewer's notions of "movie glamour" but are displayed in all their naked impact. Most scenes take their time to unwind their narrative dimension, strengthened by a selection of images that mostly takes character as its pivotal point and is not afraid to unravel extreme feelings before an audience that almost forgets the artistry involved, so life-like is the spell. Few are the movies that make away with all the artificial (although in many times, necessary and not harmful) apparatus to frame a self-conscious scenic piece, to the point that the viewer does almost become either a voyeur or a passive and ever silent character.This is a movie made with words as well as through skillfully handled images, the act of telling- of expressing one's mind, often distraught and disturbed- is a step towards closure, to confess is to gain power over one's destiny.Ultimately, Saraband is about choice: and how to save one's self one must damn those one loves and hates the most. Because happiness is always a compromise and to grow up a few strings must the severed and blood must be shed. Incest, betrayal, violence and the dissolving power of time unfurl their horrors in a quiet, true to life and visceral way that leaves nothing untouched and is not afraid to clash with the viewer even as it lulls him into believing the tale told in shades of memorable experiences that both scar and liberate. Above all, Saraband is not afraid to show us old age without playing soft romantic hues over a harsh, yet ever touching, reality; it isn't afraid to explore how filial love and be twisted around itself and become a strangling force without ceasing to be love; it isn't afraid to drive its characters to the extreme without alleviating such nerve racking disclosures via movie-gimmicks; it isn't afraid to show loss can be all pervasive and a shadow out of which some never do emerge: just as it isn't afraid to show how, at times, a few precious moments of empathy are enough to make up for everything.And, perhaps, in its honesty and courageous interpretation of life, Saraband gives us happy endings they ought to be presented more often: intervals of sunshine in a sombre landscape, all deeds pertaining to happiness and emancipation having also a downside of sacrifice. Brilliant, in a word.