Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman
I’ve watched this movie several times over the last 50 years, most recently the night before last. It has always resonated with me, but only on this latest viewing did I feel I finally understood it: at its heart, it is about innocents caught in a war they didn’t choose. Made at the height of the Vietnam War, the film might be considered anti-war, yet its setting is neither Vietnam nor World War II. Instead, a civil war rages in, of all places, Sweden. The central characters are two musicians living on an island, hoping to escape the chaos until the war catches up with them. We are given little information about the conflict and cannot tell who the good guys or bad guys are. Rather than pushing an ideology, the film focuses on the raw emotion of its protagonists as war strains their already burdened marriage. Liv Ulman and Max von Sydow play the couple to perfection. As usual, Sven Nykvist’s cinematography masterfully portrays both the warring armies and the protagonists. Bergman said in an interview that, while writing the film, he imagined what he would do in these situations and shaped the scenes around those responses. That personal approach connects with what finally struck me on this viewing: the film’s power lies in how war overtakes individual lives. An amazing movie—one I finally feel I understand.
