VIFF

VIFF 2013 review: Liv & Ingmar

(Norway/UK/India)

by Ken Eisner on September 25th, 2013 at 1:00 PM
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      One of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s middle-period films was called Shame—a concept apparently unknown to his long-time lover and best-known star, Norway’s Liv Ullmann. The opprobrium she heaps on the late auteur is undoubtedly deserved, but her self-serving confessions don’t make anyone look good, and she adds precisely nothing to our understanding of the awesome work they created together, here seen in out-of-context clips that are still powerful enough to obliterate everything around them. Contrition is apparently likewise alien to Indian director Dheeraj Akolkar, who frames her well-practised indictments with enough Hallmark-card imagery and syrupy piano music to ensure that if he were alive, Bergman (in the Hannah and Her Sisters words of alter ego Max von Sydow) “would never stop throwing up”.

      Cinematheque, September 27 (2:30 p.m.) and October 4 (noon) and 11 (7 p.m.) 

      Comments

      1 Comments

      Neil

      Oct 9, 2013 at 4:30pm

      Wow. This was the best film I've seen at VIFF this year. This horrible review is completely cynical and undeserving. The movie is about the relationship between the director and his star actress/wife/friend - it doesn't pretend to be anything else so i wonder if the reviewer even read the movie's description before seeing it.

      If the honesty and insight Liv Ullman provides in this revealing documentary is something to be ashamed of I suggest Ken Eisner is willfully ignorant of the brutal honesty Ingmar was known for depicting in his films (not least of which "Scenes from a Marriage" which was in many ways based on their relationship). Not to mention his overt judgment that it is somehow unbecoming of his best friend and star actress to speak truthfully about all aspects of their relationship. FYI: That's the basis of the movie. He also calls Liv Ullman Bergman's "long-time lover" which is factually incorrect - they were married for a few years, then divorced and were only friends after that. She was however his most preffered and closest muse...a fact that is downplayed in this review. Makes me wonder why he even bothered going in the first place!

      An extremely insightful documentary that is beautifully done and left much of the audience in tears. No one knew Bergman better.