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.

Bergman Island (2021)

 

Writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve

ensemble cast with the director at Cannes

Vicky Krieps with Tim Roth

The director with Tim Roth

Bergman and friends on Fårö Island

Liv Ullman from Persona (1966)

Liv Ullman with Ingmar Bergman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BERGMAN ISLAND                       B+                                                                                     France  Belgium  Germany  Sweden  Mexico (113 mi)  2021 ‘Scope  d: Mia Hansen-Løve

No one’s expecting Persona.                                                                                                     —Tony’s (Tim Roth) reassurance to Chris (Vicky Krieps)

Ready for release last year for a Cannes Film Festival that never happened, due to Covid, so it sat on a shelf for a year, like a hidden secret.  Some will see more to their liking in this film, while others will see less, as it’s all a matter of perspective and personal connection.  Nearly two decades after Marie Nyreröd’s documentary BERGMAN ISLAND (2006), where she travels to Bergman’s home residence on Fårö Island to interview him extensively near the end of his life on a life of seclusion while also inquiring about his reflections both in cinema and theater, French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve has crafted a fictionalized tribute to Bergman, but seen through a much more delicate and subtle woman’s perspective.  In what remains a male-dominated movie industry, Hansen-Løve has become a uniquely relevant voice, where this film is like a treasure hunt of embedded secrets, where the more you look, the more you find.  Her first film spoken entirely in English, and the first of her films to play in competition in Cannes, it follows two married American filmmakers, Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth), as they make a pilgrimage to Fårö Island to live in one of the Bergman houses doing a writer’s residency during a summer retreat, both expecting to work on film projects while living in the house where he shot SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1973), the backdrop for his love affair with actress Liv Ullman, yet also, they’re quickly told, “the film that made thousands of people divorce.” (Do Swedes still blame Bergman for upping the divorce rate?)  As if summoned by Bergman ghosts of the past, their relationship also hits some rocky spots, mirroring Bergman’s semi-autobiographical account of a marriage falling apart, as did the director’s own 15-year relationship with French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, who is twenty-six years older (separated in 2017), with Chris more than a little sexually frustrated with the much older Tony, whose reserve seems to dominate their relationship, which he finds safe and comforting, a pattern that feels distancing to her, noting “All this beauty is oppressive.”  On Bergman “Why didn’t he ever once try to explore happiness,” though it seems like with Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) (1955) he did just that.  Married five times with nine children (from six different women), what stands out to Chris is how Bergman neglected his children in the pursuit of his art, forcing the mothers to raise the kids alone, making it evident that Bergman was as cruel in his art as in his life.  What’s also clear is that a woman would not have been able to do what Bergman did, as they’re judged by different standards, as women freely having children with different fathers in that era (or any era) is viewed completely differently than men.  Men get a pass in the name of art, while women are critically bludgeoned for abandoning their children, like actress Ingrid Bergman, who was eviscerated by the tabloids for having an extra-marital affair, leaving her daughter behind to work with Roberto Rossellini and have their own child (Isabella Rossellini, star of David Lynch’s 1986 psychodrama BLUE VELVET), generating bags of hate mail, their film denounced by critics and boycotted across America, banned from appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show, while excoriated on the Senate floor in 1950 by Colorado Senator Edwin C. Johnson who called her a “vile free-love cultist” and a “powerful influence for evil,” basically exiling her from the country (with the Senate belatedly issuing a public apology more than twenty years later in 1972).  While Tony is an ardent admirer of Bergman, Chris admires his work, but loathes the man for the selfishness of his personal choices, unable and unwilling to connect with his children.  This realization is at the heart of the picture, as Tony quickly takes the desk in their Bergman home, clearly assuming his partner is not his equal, seemingly uninterested in her work, also dismissive of her needs, forcing Chris to look elsewhere, taking refuge in an old mill, like a lighthouse with a windmill, with a small desk overlooking a window.  The entire island is quite picturesque, very bright and sunny in the summertime, almost Rohmeresque, shot in ‘Scope on 35mm by former Olivier Assayas cinematographer Dennis Lenoir, expressing remarkable colors, while the everpresent Baltic Sea is always nearby.  Chris regularly leaps into the water, like a wake-up call, where the physical exterior of the island offers a sensual release, while Tony prefers to gaze from afar and avoids the water altogether.  Tony gets right into the project, working furiously in what appears to be a predetermined direction, while for Chris it takes some time to get her bearings, immediately missing her daughter June, spending more time on a bike exploring the island, a metaphor for the meandering exploration of the artistic process, while a developing storyline percolates in her imagination with multiple possibilities, entangled in a relationship (just like her own) with multiple dead-ends, where she seems to accentuate the moments between events, not the events themselves, a space where desire and curiosity lurk, fraught with anticipation.  Of interest, Tony rides a girl’s bike while Chris rides a boy’s.

Hansen-Løve accurately portrays the life of the partner of an artist, consumed with their own space and time, not that of their partner, rigidly uncompromising in their viewpoints, starkly unaware of the thoughts of others, where you must accept the fact they simply lose themselves in their art, an intensely personal space that is strictly off-limits to you.  In a prescient moment, Chris visits the house but finds Tony missing, so she lingers over the meticulous notes from his notebook, discovering sexually abusive drawings of women in degradingly submissive positions, seemingly out of synch with the overall pastoral serenity of the island, and the more gently probing imagination of Chris, yet what we see is decisively the male gaze.  In a similar vein, Tony is the invited guest introducing one of his films during Bergman Week, where students from all over the world gather for screenings, seminars, and historical tours, the only week the entire year where 35mm prints are screened, as prints do not stay on the island because it’s too humid, so they’re preserved in Stockholm, with Tony interestingly revealing in a discussion afterwards that he’s only really comfortable exploring a central character that is female, which has a patronizing air coming from Roth, though it also represents Bergman’s mindset during his lifetime.  As he’s busy with a Q & A, Chris wanders into a nearby gift shop and buys a pair of Bibi Andersson sunglasses (having forgotten her own), before exploring a nearby church where she meets Hampus (Hampus Nordenson, basically playing himself, having met the director on one of her excursions to the island), a film student also doing a residency whose grandparents are residents of the island, so his familiarity allows him to act as her own personal tour guide, while Tony fends for himself on the Bergman Safari, the name emblazoned on the side of a bright yellow school bus exploring the island with residency students and a tour guide, including a woman who’s knitting throughout the entire tour.  Hampus shows her Bergman’s grave alongside the island’s only church while informing her he and his girlfriend were the only ones in the theater watching her most recent film, getting into an argument afterwards, as he liked it but she didn’t, then breaking up afterwards.  The grave is in a stone-walled cemetery overlooking the sea, isolated under a shade tree, with Hampus revealing nobody really cares about him in Sweden anymore, as he’s become a forgotten artist.  Yet these pilgrimages are made in honor of his works, something of a cineaste’s dream, taking a Bergman pilgrimage to Fårö Island, a simply wonderful experience this film revives, with fewer than 500 full-time residents who are loathe to even acknowledge Bergman, so when visitors ask where Bergman’s house is, local islanders tend to ignore them or point in the opposite direction, as he’s responsible for attracting these hordes of interlopers who upset the serenity of the island, spoiling the natural solitude and remoteness of the region, as up until 1998, the island was off-limits to foreigners as a protected military zone.  Yet you don’t have to be an artist or scholar, as applications are accepted from anyone, where accommodations are free so long as you reimburse the community in the form of a cultural event (Application - The Bergman Estate on Fårö).  Tony’s group experience is surprisingly different than the personalized tour from Hampus, yet it produces its own revelations, as one of the residency students is Gabe Klinger, Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater (2013) and Porto (2016), where this good fortune to be in a Bergman tribute film on Fårö with an elite filmmaker sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime.  What better way to ride out the Covid pandemic than to retreat to such an isolated island, yet there is no sign of the pandemic or masks anywhere in the film, giving it a timeless effect.  While Chris enjoys the sand dunes of Ullahau, Tony visits the site of Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel) (1961), discovering no home was ever built there, as it was only a movie set that came down after the completion of the film, so no signs remain, while also visiting the site of Persona (1966), with a mentally deteriorated Bergman rejuvenated by the experience, claiming it was the film that saved his life.  Bergman was so enraptured by what he found on Fårö, the isolation and rugged beauty matched his own inner landscape, offering a sense of solitude, never leaving the island again after 2004.  The director provides her own unique musical interludes during the travel excursions, either by ferry, car, or bus, choosing harp music by Robin Williamson Robin Williamson - Gwydion's Dream - YouTube (1:57) from the Incredible String Band, providing a gentle backdrop for what is ultimately a pilgrimage seeking a quest for knowledge, where the trip to the island of Fårö is pure enchantment. 

While Tony is too wrapped up in his own work to offer true affection, remaining brazenly oblivious to what’s going on with Chris through most of the film, but the biggest surprise overall is the director’s choice of a film-within-a film, elevating the material to a different level, literally transforming what we see into something altogether different, as what was a merging of the artistic experiences and perspectives of Tony and Chris is reduced entirely to the female point of view, where the film she has been working on suddenly takes shape and plays out onscreen, with Chris narrating the film to a continually distracted Tony.  Seen exclusively through the eyes of Amy (Mia Wasikowska), who narrates the story, an American filmmaker in her late 20’s is travelling to Fårö for the wedding of a friend Nicolette (Clara Strauch), who is marrying a Swede named Jonas (Joel Spira), where she hopes to rekindle a love affair with Joseph (Anders Danielsen Lie), having had a passionate affair earlier when they were just fifteen, but the timing was wrong, yet she has continued loving him from afar, reminiscent of Hansen-Løve’s earlier film Goodbye First Love (Un Amour de Jeunesse) (2011), where a young woman struggles to overcome the attachment she still feels for her first love, with Sophie Monks Kaufman from Little White Lies suggesting “Bergman Island is the last chapter to Goodbye First Love.” (Bergman Island first-look review – Mia Hansen–Løve's tender ...).  While the early excitement of spending time together seemingly goes well, the film accentuates the stronger emotional intensity of Amy, even during the wedding ceremony, when Joseph largely avoids her.  Making matters worse, Joseph is staying at the centrally located Bergman House, one of the larger accommodations, with suggestions that there’s room enough for two, while Amy is farther away, having to travel a greater distance while remaining isolated from most of the wedding activities.  The reception is at a large house on a lake, with an open bar and music playing, with Amy feeling somewhat aloof, uncertain of how she feels, with Joseph approaching her to dance, completely unaware of the bewildering effect he’s had on her, but then they decide to visit a sauna by the beach and go skinny dipping before having sex, but she’s devastated to hear he’s repeatedly been unfaithful to his girlfriend, something that doesn’t register with Joseph, who just claims it’s all a part of life.  By morning, however, he’s the one grown cold and distant, claiming what they did was a mistake, a betrayal of his relationship, leaving her even more confused, as Joseph takes on an air of nonchalance, basically giving her the brush-off.  The storyline is a choreography of ever shifting emotions, changing on a dime, as reality rarely meets expectations, growing confused by the constant re-evaluation of the circumstances, as the director cleverly uses musical period pieces by Tina Charles, I Love To Love - Bergman Island (2021) (1:53), and ABBA, Bergman Island - The Winner Takes It All YouTube (2:50), to provide an interior narration, as she makes every attempt to keep the flame alive, but Joseph just doesn’t cooperate, making promises he can’t keep, simply avoiding her before slinking off the island the next morning without a word, which leaves her demoralized and crushed, not knowing what to do, left in a state of heartache, perhaps an indicator of what’s in store for her.  Chris asks Tony for help with an ending, but he defers, claiming she’ll figure it out, preoccupied by a phone call, where his own life gets in the way, abandoning her as well, escaping the island for a few days in meetings with his producers, leaving her in a lurch.  She takes a bicycle ride to Lauter, home of the Bergman Estate, situated in a pine forest overlooking the sea, wandering inside where she runs into Hampus again, showing her the vast library before he exits, needing to catch a ferry, while she dozes off on the sofa, awakened suddenly by the actor Anders Danielson Lie, as himself, who expresses disappointment that she didn’t write a scene for them in this house, which he’s always wanted to see.  The lines between fiction and reality somehow merge together, meeting up later with Mia Wasikowska as herself, where this dreamlike blend represents what’s taking place in her subconscious imagination, something of an ode to the passage of time, with lingering reflections of youth, but the money shot is saved for the end, with Tony returning with June, who runs into the waiting arms of Chris, freeze frame on that glorious smile.  In contrast to Bergman, and perhaps Tony as well, Hansen-Løve makes it clear that a woman’s maternal instincts ultimately prevail, making a case for personal happiness.  Hansen-Løve belongs to a school of filmmakers making personal films that resemble their own autobiography, writing her own screenplays, subverting expectations, using art as a catharsis for her own internal struggles, much like Bergman did, with both routinely making films while looking at themselves in the mirror, but the joy of this film is associating the somber spectrum of Bergman over her gentler, more tenderly understated style, where clearly she’s influenced by the Swedish master, but troubled at the same time, hating the man he was, while loving the sublime art and poetry of his work.  At bare minimum, while making a liberating statement about her own tenuous relationships, perhaps finding a way to extricate herself from a strained affair, this film resuscitates Bergman’s relevance on a new generation of filmmakers, placing him front and center in the impassioned personalization of cinema.