The War Zone

 

Director Tim Roth

novelist Alexander Stuart

Roth with his lead actress Lara Belmont

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WAR ZONE                              A                                                                                   Great Britain  Italy  (99 mi)  1999  ‘Scope  d: Tim Roth

The commitment you have to make as a director is far greater than the commitment you have to make as an actor so the material you choose must be something that really matters, otherwise it's a waste of time.  And that applies whether it matters in a dramatic piece or a comedy.         —Tim Roth

A film like this would simply not be made today, financing would be inconceivable, and the public would be morally outraged, finding the subject matter objectionable, revealing just how much the world has shifted to the political right since then, as the contents are gut-wrenching and profoundly disturbing, the only film ever directed by Tim Roth and it’s a harrowing experience, creating a searingly realistic portrait of family incest, not relegated to the background as it is in most films, instead using a no holds barred approach, putting it front and center, making this one of the most difficult watches in cinema, even 25-years after it was made.  Contributing to the difficulty is the unflinching approach Roth brings to making the film, an adaptation of Alexander Stuart’s 1989 novel (also writing the screenplay), which was out of print when the film was released, winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize, chosen as Britain’s Best Novel of the Year when it was first published, but was instantly stripped of the award amid controversy among the judges, with one describing it as “repellent” and threatening to resign from the panel if Stuart received the award, due to the novel’s stark and uncompromising portrayal of incest.  Part of what contributed to the author’s grim depiction was the loss of his young 5-year old son from cancer, leaving a devastating hole in his life that could simply not be replaced, bringing much of that personal anguish to the novel.  In a bittersweet note, the film is actually dedicated to Stuart’s lost child.  What makes this film particularly compelling is Roth is himself a sexual abuse survivor, having been abused by his paternal grandfather from childhood until his early teen years, a revelation not disclosed until he started an 18-month promotional tour for the film, while it was another 17 years before identifying the abuser, also discovering that his own father had been abused by the same man.  His distinctly personalized approach was to confront the audience with an uncompromising, emotionally complex film about abuse, intentionally exposing them to the same blistering pain, told from the point of view of the children who are emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged by actions inflicted from an exploitive parent, hounded by the way it plays upon guilt and shame, continually gnawing on old wounds, shot with poetic moments of tenderness that make the scenes of sexual violence all the more horrifying, not only heartbreaking and quietly devastating, but an indescribable human tragedy.  There’s a sense of total isolation and alienation in the surroundings, with long periods of oppressive silence that contribute to the overall mood of despair.  Adding to the interest is the brilliant casting, finding Ray Winstone, Tilda Swinton, and Colin Farrell (only seen briefly)  very early in their careers, though Swinton doesn’t have much of a presence, having just given birth to twins a month earlier, where her postpartum body was utilized, with a naked breast exposed, while a trimmed down Winstone had just made Gary Oldman’s NIL BY MOUTH (1997), another in-your-face, emotionally bruising film about alcoholism and domestic abuse that is filled with profanity, a particular specialty of Winstone, using it to a devastating effect in this film.  Winstone and Swinton are the two parents, known only as Dad and Mum, introducing two newcomers with no acting experience as the children, Lara Belmont as 18-year old Jessie, supposedly discovered while shopping at a flea market, working at a Burger King in London at the time, and Freddie Cunliffe as 15-year old Tom, reportedly accompanying a friend to the audition, largely seen through the awkward eyes of Tom, defined by his blank expression, carrying with him an overwhelming despair, often seen wearing a hoodie, usually looking glum or indifferent, a frustrated teenager to be sure, yet seeing the world through a child’s eyes makes all the difference.  Belmont is utterly phenomenal in her role, bringing a surprising amount of wounded depth, as the film would never have the same level of impact without her, becoming the focal center of the picture, though the rocky shorelines of the rugged north Devon coastline continually intervene, resembling a classical David Lean landscape, like the picturesque images of the Irish coast in Ryan's Daughter (1970), providing a natural force.  The surrounding grasslands never looked greener, shrouded in everpresent overcast skies and constant downpours of rain, a relentlessly grim outlook contributing to an overall mood of wrenching despair, beautifully shot by a young Seamus McGarvey, capturing the rare poetic beauty of a Scottish coast in Alan Rickman’s THE WINTER GUEST (1997), going on to shoot THE HOURS (2002), a decidedly somber Virginia Woolf adaptation, and Lynne Ramsay’s highly stylized We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011).    

Following in the footsteps of Roth’s first acting experiences on British television in Alan Clarke’s MADE IN BRITAIN (1983) and Mike Leigh’s MEANTIME (1983), this film was even funded by Channel Four, a British TV station that also produced Mike Leigh’s first television film, and while Roth’s film remains open to his experience and interpretation, it may have some therapeutic value for sexual abuse survivors, exposing a hidden evil, with some screenings partnering with RAINN | The nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization, though it doesn’t vilify, and remains ambiguous in terms of sympathy, as everyone in the family is clearly impacted.  The Bideford, North Devon location is a popular holiday beach destination in the summer, a place where the Roth family actually vacationed, but the director does not have fond memories of the place, as it’s one of the prime locations where his abuse took place, so they chose to set the film in winter, where the bleak, cold, coastal landscape resonates visually and emotionally, with coldness translating to the essence of incest, where Roth’s cold recollections mirror the chilliness depicted in the film, never indulging in moralizing, yet what’s also important is that the material is in no way sensationalized.  Changing the family’s social status from upper middle class in the book to a working class family, closer to his own roots, Roth aligns himself with other British social realists like Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, but especially Alan Clarke, whose primary medium was television, reminiscent of the kitchen sink realism of the late 50’s and early 60’s.  Shot in long dark takes which powerfully suggest Tom’s growing claustrophobia in the family “war zone,” the film reveals his growing insecurities, angered at having just moved from London to this isolated coastal cottage, while his mother is also about to give birth to another child.  In a shocking development, we are witness to her water breaking, a sign she is going into labor, where they all pack into a car together with the mother screaming in pain, resulting in a horrible accident on the road, leaving them all bloodied afterwards, but everyone survives, including a new baby girl delivered from the wreckage.  This accident foreshadows everything that follows, with Roth choosing to make the film nearly entirely non-verbal, a radical departure from the first-person narrative of the novel, which gets so wrapped up in Tom’s existential demeanor that his sister Jessie remains engulfed in mystery, yet what transpires is an accentuation of a tense mood and an eerie atmosphere, with a pensive musical score by Simon Boswell.  There is a sense of alienation and uncertainty within this family, tightly compressed into claustrophobic space in their rural home, far away from anything, with no visible neighbors, where so much is told through glances or gazes at one another.  Dad is almost always on the phone off to the side of the frame or completely out of the picture, apparently fixated by his only contact with the outside world, repeating the same catch phrases, asking how much a piece of antique furniture is worth and when he can meet a prospective buyer, where the established normalcy offers a stark contrast from the monstrosity of his acts, while Mum is the picture of denial, not suspecting anything, always lying still on the couch or fiddling with newborn Alice, even seen openly pumping breast milk, leaving her breast exposed afterwards in the presence of her family, like it’s no big deal.  At one point Dad comes home late, tired and exhausted, with Mum rubbing a washcloth across his bare back in the sink, with the camera moving in and scrutinizing the back of his neck, while in another Jessie is awakened by Tom in the middle of the night, sitting up in bed completely topless, telling her brother, “You want everything to be nice and sweet, but it isn’t,” having no compulsion whatsoever to cover up, so half-naked bodies are routinely exposed within these tightly compressed rooms, hardly casual, more of a lingering sign that something is amiss.  But this daily routine changes when Tom and his mother return home with groceries in a pouring rain, where the front door is always locked so they have a habit of running to the back, but he sees something that catches his eye, peering inside a window, eventually dropping his bags, stunned by what he sees (not shown to viewers), The War Zone (1999) by Tim Roth, Clip: Tom and his mum return home from the hospital - in the rain YouTube (1:56).  Confronting his sister afterwards, he’s seen her in the bathtub with Dad, aghast at the family betrayal implications, yet she calmly brushes her hair, acting as if nothing has happened.     

One evening the family visits a local pub, as Jessie introduces Tom to her friend Nick (Colin Farrell), who drives the three of them down to the beach where they build a fire, but the two abandon Tom for the rest of the night, leaving him desperately alone until she returns in the morning, facing the wrath of her father for being out all night, where he has to be held back from attacking his daughter.  Tom reveals to his sister that he suspects she’s hiding something, her anguish increasingly visible, so when Dad supposedly goes off on a run, he follows, filled with suspicion, carrying with him a video camera, discovering an abandoned concrete war bunker at the top of a cliff, a wartime remnant explicitly designed for the film, where he witnesses Dad sodomizing Jessie against her will, crying for him to stop, an unvarnished, graphically austere depiction of the worst kind of human behavior, leaving nothing to the imagination, yet shocking in its own restraint, shown with a thorough detachment, revealing a morally reprehensible act of rape that sends chills down the spine.  Completely repulsed and disgusted, Tom turns away, wandering over to the rocks and hurls his camera into the sea.  Psychologists and counselors were on the set during the filming, cognizant of potentially scarring the young child actors, whose parents had read the script beforehand, so they knew what to expect, while Roth talked them through the emotions of the scenes, but something surprising occurred, as the sound man nearly ruined the bunker scene by crying into his microphone, while Winstone, according to Roth, found it so upsetting that he nearly left the production afterwards.  Initially, Tom was insistent on blaming his sister, thinking she could put an end to this behavior, as if she was controlling the narrative, too young and naïve to realize she is clearly the victim of her father’s predatory acts, but having witnessed the horror with his own eyes, he grows more sympathetic towards Jessie, while fuming in anger at his father.  When baby Alice is sent to the hospital with troubling signs, Tom warns his mother never to let his father anywhere near her, and not to trust him, but leaves when the medical team abruptly arrives to her room, leaving his mother searching for an explanation that never comes.  When Dad gets wind of this at home, he confronts Tom who blurts out what he’s seen, his father sexually violating his own sister, with Dad erupting in anger as only Winstone can, going on a profanity-laden stream of non-stop invectives, calling his son a liar, blaming him for trying to break up the family, suggesting it’s all a figment of his sick imagination, where the F-word is every second or third word, even threatening to maim his own son, with Jessie crying throughout, arms over her head covering her ears, utterly distraught, as everything that was once considered safe is now in ruins.  What ultimately transpires is tense, darkly disturbing, and open to interpretation, with no definitive answers, yet draws a clear distinction between reality and fantasy, actually veering into the horror genre, as this revolting criminal behavior has rarely been examined with this level of scrutiny.  While this may seem high, FBI authorities estimate incest occurs in over 10 percent of American families, yet only 20 percent of these offenses are reported, largely because it is initiated by someone the child, usually a girl, loves and trusts, Incest - The Last Taboo (Part l) - Office of Justice Programs.  “Shockingly it is estimated that more than 90 percent of all childhood sexual abuse is perpetrated by family members, friends of family members, or other individuals that children know,” Incest and its Prevalence in American Society | by Madelyn Joy, all of which suggests this is one of the few films that actually addresses this most shadowy of crimes,which can result in emotional indifference, as feelings can be driven out of victims, leading to a lifetime of unending despair without proper therapy.  Premiering at Sundance, Roth won a Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, while also invited to Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, which is rare when a film has previously screened in Europe.  When the movie screened at the Toronto Film Festival, one viewer was so visibly upset that he shouted he couldn’t take any more, running for the exit, intercepted by Roth, who was in attendance, meeting him at the door, as something was likely triggered, and it took 20-minutes of intense conversation to calm the man down.  It is no exaggeration to say the film is emotionally suffocating, offering no hint of relief, literally drowning in the trauma of the subject matter, imploring us to keep our eyes open.

Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap)

 

Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann

Bergman with Ullmann, Josephson, and Sven Nykvist

Bergman with Ullmann and Erland Josephson

 

 

 

 

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (Scener ur ett äktenskap) – made for TV       A                  Sweden  (167 mi)  1973  d: Ingmar Bergman      Swedish TV version, 6-part series (281 mi)

There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.  To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the ‘thorn in the flesh’ is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.

—Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychoanalyst, from Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works), 1944

The film that supposedly doubled the divorce rate in Sweden, rising from approximately 16,000 divorces in 1973 to more than 26,000 the year after (Do Swedes still blame Bergman for upping the divorce rate?), with spouses finally able to articulate their grievances towards each other, viewed by 3.5 million, nearly half the Swedish population by the time the last episode was broadcast, as the streets were supposedly empty during the hours it was shown on six consecutive Wednesday evenings in April and May, where it would be hard to think of another movie that has had such a huge impact on people’s lives, listed as the #1 Film of the Year by Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert: 1967-2006.  With an audience that consisted of twice as many women than men, it’s important to realize that political, social, and cultural changes were already happening, so a similar occurrence was happening elsewhere as well, including the United States, largely from the impetus of the 60’s women’s movement and feminist activism, suggesting women were no longer locked into long-term loveless marriages.  Initially broadcast in a nearly 5-hour 6-part television series, this was Bergman’s first major film on television, having directed several theater plays and having earlier premiered THE RITE (1969) for Swedish television, where the broadcast included a brief conversation with the director beforehand, with Bergman urging viewers to turn off the TV and go to the movies instead.  In one of Bergman’s interviews for a Swedish newspaper prior to making the film, he mentioned it would be about “the absolute fact that the bourgeois ideal of security corrupts people’s emotional lives, undermines them, frightens them,” (Scenes from a Marriage - Ingmar Bergman), written after Bergman had separated from Liv Ullmann, having multiple failed marriages behind him, and was embarking on a relationship with his fifth wife, Ingrid Karlebo, organized in a theme and variation structure that throws light on the changing, ambiguous nature of people’s feelings.  Condensed into a theatrical version of just under 3-hours for an international release the following year, losing the end credit sequences read by Bergman himself after each episode while Fårö landscape images are shown, yet in 1977 PBS aired the entire series unedited.  Richer and much deeper than expected, the ultimate character study, it was filmed almost exclusively on Fårö Island where Bergman had lived for about a decade, shot in 16 mm by Sven Nykvist, though transferred to 35mm, painstakingly dissecting the institution of marriage, subverting expectations by delving into the dramatic complexities in an expansive scope that flies into a rage of marital discontent, depicting a decade’s worth of marital turmoil between psychology professor Johan (Erland Josephson) and family divorce lawyer Marianne (Liv Ullmann), turning into what American film scholar Marsha Kinder describes as “emotional dynamite.”  Adopting a new kind of psychological realism, using long takes and minimal editing, the camera holds tight in near claustrophobic close-ups on the two subjects, almost always indoors, making sure they are intensely scrutinized in a way that had never been captured on film, providing a multi-dimensional view of a long-term relationship, confronting a full range of feelings, with some episodes drawing on the director’s own experiences, including his own relationship with Ullmann.  Dispensing with many of the familiar Bergman devices, like overt symbolism, dreams, or fantasy, even expressive color schemes, this is a stripped down attempt at authenticity, using sparsely furnished décors, like living in a bubble, creating a minimalist world with positively no distractions, made for just $200,000, released just a month before Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), both exhibiting a blistering honesty through confessional dialogue, similar to Cassavetes’ Husbands (1970) or Maurice Pialat’s We Won't Grow Old Together (Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble) (1972).  Told in six chapter headings, the film crew shot one episode per week, with Ullman and Josephson feeling so comfortable in their roles that they never rehearsed, having already worked together in Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) (1968), The Passion of Anna (1969),  Bergman, Two from the 70's: Cries and Whispers (1972), so the captured footage is quite simply amazing in the depth of their performances, with Ullmann, in particular, providing an astounding range of emotions, the likes of which we simply never see anymore, providing one of the greatest performances in the last half century, elevating this to one of Bergman’s greatest works.  One of the biggest criticisms Bergman faced throughout his career is that he rarely strayed from the comfort of bourgeois, middle class characters, a fairly educated elite whose problems are less bound by the economic restrictions hindering the large majority of the world.  Western societies changed rapidly in the 60’s, eradicating some of the moral restrictions of previous generations, as depicted in Ibsen’s monumental play, A Doll’s House, which still resonates today (The creation and impact of A Doll's House - Issuu), advancing the freedoms of women, including increased education and greater job opportunities, while making advancements in sexual equality, racial equality, and gay rights.              

Both characters change significantly as their marriage evolves, with Johan’s boastful air of supreme confidence changing to doubt and insecurity, while Marianne blossoms in her role, initially viewed as little more than what others expect her to be, a dutiful wife and mother of two daughters, the keeper of the household even as she maintains her job, yet continually sacrificing for her husband’s career advancement.  Her growing self-awareness mirrors the spreading social consciousness of the 1970’s, with Bergman using a realist and naturalist style, appearing almost as a documentary, perhaps the closest he’s ever come to theater, putting the focus on dialogue, uniquely blending theater into cinema, where it’s hard to overestimate the dramatic power of its reach, as the film is a model of a balanced structure, with few, if any, extraneous details, as each scene organically unravels into the next, arguably the best edited film in Bergman’s career.  There are breaks in time between each chapter, a key factor, where the viewer is left to reconstruct what was missed, achieving an astonishing level of intensity, directly confronting each other with no distractions, no musical intrusions, with secondary characters and subplots largely ignored, as practically every scene is about the two of them, alone together, where three of the episodes (3, 4, and 5) contain no other actors, and one of them (5) is in real-time.  It opens in an interview format, expressed by a 16-minute static shot, as they are photographed and interviewed by close friends Katarina (Bibi Andersson) and Peter (Jan Malmsjö) for a woman’s magazine as the perfect couple, living together for ten years in a comfortable home with two young daughters, shown only once for a family photo and then never seen again, both close to their respective families, each enjoying their own career, yet when they host their friends for dinner afterwards, it erupts into a fireworks of marital animosity.  Both invited guests are atrociously brutal, each making incendiary comments countered by a more hateful response, making it difficult right from the outset, with Peter sarcastically emphasizing his patriarchal contempt, “August Strindberg once said, ‘Could there be anything more terrifying than a husband and wife who hate each other?’  What do you say?  Child abuse could possibly be worse.  But then again, Katarina and I are children.  Deep down, Katarina is a little girl who cries because no one comforts her when she falls.  And in the opposite corner, I’m a little boy who cries because Katarina can’t love me.  Even though I’m bad and mean to her.”  The degree of acrimony on display is frightening, an ugly display of savage cruelty that serves as a stark contrast to their supposed harmonious bliss, and a foreshadowing of things to come, as they only remain married for the first hour, with the rest exploring the recriminating fallout of their once happy union, tracking their relationship through matrimony, infidelity, divorce, and subsequent partnerships, at times digging the shrapnel out of their wounds from all the combustible damage inflicted.  The secret to their idyllic happiness appears to be naïveté, as they tend to avoid problems by simply pretending they don’t exist, “the art of sweeping under the rug,” which may work initially, when they’re so much more forgiving, but over time this grates on one’s nerves.  Johan is startled to discover he writes mediocre poetry, while Marianne can’t stand up to her mother, yet she’s able to amusingly tell her husband, “You have moments of greatness interspersed with sheer mediocrity.”  We begin to see telltale signs, as both are bound to their mothers, forever trying to please them, and live the kind of life they are “supposed to live.”  Among the more noteworthy scenes is Marianne interviewing a graying, middle-aged woman in her office who calmly tells her she wants a divorce after 20 years of living with a husband she never loved, feeling no connection to their children, but she waited until they were grown, always putting her own needs aside, now ready to start a new life of her own, something she has always looked forward to.  The stark honesty of this woman is remarkable, speaking with a chilling detachment of how her senses are slowly dulling in proportion to the emotional suffocation she feels her relationship is imposing upon her, a precursor of what’s to come, ominous in the power of its foreshadowing implications, like a doomed witches prophecy in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, taking Marianne completely by surprise, perhaps a little bit horrified, yet the enduring aspect is that she is still searching for love.    

The real shock comes when out of the blue Johan announces he’s leaving Marianne for another woman, suffocated by the restrictive nature of their life together, leaving for Paris in the morning without even explaining his absence to his daughters, where he will be gone for 6 months to a year, which is the first sign their supposed idyllic marriage is rupturing, yet his contemptible behavior is so typical of middle-aged men, finding a lover twenty years younger who reaffirms his masculinity.  It’s a devastating shock to Marianne, who is thoroughly humiliated, her life sabotaged by the one she trusts most, struggling to maintain her stability, “You’re presenting me with a fait accompli.  You’re putting me in a ridiculous and intolerable situation,” yet the hyperrealist approach only accentuates the brutality of the act, especially when she continues to express extreme compassion for him, clearly setting aside the fact he’s cheating on her. Shattered by the deceit and callousness of his action, even more so when she learns all their friends are privy to Johan’s affair yet no one has warned her, leaving her utterly broken, having reached the ultimate bottom, too emotionally spent to even cry, realizing she is truly all alone without a safety net for the first time in her life.  The abrupt ending of this sequence leaves viewers equally overcome by the blistering intensity, having become emotionally invested in these characters, where you wonder where this is going, and if things will get too searingly heated, as this is not an easy watch, especially in one sitting, emotionally draining, plunging us into the depths of the unknown, yet Bergman carefully balances the tumultuous emotional odyssey, making it eminently watchable television, where the end of each episode makes you want to come back for more, something missing from his other television dramas.  While Marianne is initially shaken, she gradually asserts her independence and finds a new strength, beautifully expressed in an extraordinary monologue where she reads an extract from her diary, accompanied by a superbly constructed montage of personal childhood photos of Ullmann from a baby to a young adolescent, a wonderfully lyrical expression of self-reflection.

Suddenly I turned and looked at an old school picture from back when I was 10. I seemed to detect something that had eluded me up to then. To my surprise I must admit that I don’t know who I am. I haven’t the vaguest idea. I’ve always done as I was told. As far as I can remember I’ve been obedient, well-adjusted, almost meek. I did assert myself once or twice as a girl, but Mother punished any lapses from convention with exemplary severity. My entire upbringing and that of my sisters, was aimed at making us agreeable. I was ugly and awkward, a fact I was constantly reminded of. I later realized that if I kept my thoughts to myself, and was ingratiating and predictable, my behavior yielded rewards. The most momentous deception began at puberty. All my thoughts, feelings and actions revolved around sex.  But this I never told my parents. Or anyone at all, for that matter. Being deceitful and secretive became second nature to me. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. I dropped hints that I wanted to be an actress. You know what? I think I’m breaking free at last. But they laughed at me. Since then I go on pretending. Faking my relationships with others, with men. Always putting on an act in a desperate attempt to please. I’ve never considered what I want, but only, ‘What does he want me to want?’ It’s not unselfishness, as I used to believe. It’s sheer cowardice. Even worse, it stems from my being ignorant of who I am.

Johan, on the other hand, grows smaller in stature, literally thriving in male privilege as he cavorts throughout Europe for a year while Marianne handles all the child care, continues to work, and organize the family activities, yet Johan eventually sours on his distant affair, growing sick of that life, with his career going downhill, feeling defeated and lost, yearning for the security of their marriage, something Marianne can no longer provide, “I’ve taken your feelings into account far too often.  Being considerate killed our love,” preferring to build something new, believing they will both be better for it.  Johan wants to flee back to a past he has already soundly rejected while Marianne prefers to leave it behind, instead asking him to sign divorce papers, where he retaliates with brute force, openly assaulting her in a violent rage, a disturbing scene not often shown in Bergman films, but it shows the petty and demeaning nature of men who are used to a dominant patriarchal role, enraged that Marianne would refuse to reassume the submissive role she once played during their marriage.  An important change has occurred while attempting to grasp the meaning of love and marriage, as a power shift towards individualization is happening through changing views on sexuality, as women’s roles are changing, no longer defined by domestic subservience, where sex was strictly for reproductive purposes, instead it’s linked to autonomy and individual gratification, as sexual liberation leads to the emancipation of women.  Particularly in Nordic countries, women had more social rights, especially compared to the rest of Europe, as women were considered independent citizens, a generational shift from being viewed exclusively in relation to their husbands and their positions as mothers.  The implication drawn is that a lasting relationship can only exist between equals, while creating that equality is much more complicated than simply earning money from prestigious jobs.  By the last chapter, their initial identities have been reversed, as Johan does not know who he is anymore while Marianne is happy with herself, yet their final conciliatory dialogue is quite extraordinary, a remarkable calm considering the turbulent waters they have traversed, suggesting the film is really about a growing self-awareness while hopefully learning something about themselves.  The sexual liberation she boasts stands for her liberation in a wider sense, an evolution tying into the societal process of women’s emancipation at the time, as both characters redefine their sense of identity and the extent to which they can feel successful in any kind of love, both happily remarrying partners who are never seen, though their behavior may surprise viewers as they reignite former passions in some of the familiar places seen earlier, now given an entirely new vantage point, like young lovers seeking a romantic weekend getaway.  Bergman initiates this sequence with a high crane shot overlooking a busy urban metropolis, presumably Stockholm, the only shot like that anywhere in the film, exuding a rare freedom of open space, like opening a new door in their lives. 

Postscript

Likely seen by more viewers than any other Bergman film, it has influenced and inspired countless people, not just in terms of changing their lives, exploring how long-term relationships can endure disastrous setbacks and still survive, but also in an artistic sense, unique among Bergman’s works as the only film to have been adapted for the stage, while certain characters reappear in later works.  Peter and Katarina, for instance, are the protagonists in FROM THE LIFE OF THE MARIONETTES (1980), while Johan and Marianne reappear in Bergman’s final film SARABAND (2003), promoted as a sequel to this film, yet despite the names, with the same actors playing the parts 30-years later, they share little else in common.