Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Film Review

Scenes from a Marriage is arguably the most compelling, and possibly most revealing, of Ingmar Bergman's chamber pieces - intimate dramas with a small cast having a very focussed central theme. The film was originally made as a six-part series for Swedish television, but was subsequently released for cinema in an edited form which retains the six-part structure but dispenses with many of the secondary characters.

When the series was originally broadcast in Sweden, it was so popular that Bergman was immediately considered to be the nation's Number One marriage guidance expert, and was bombarded with requests for help from thousands of married couples.  This, along with the success of the film version in the United States and the rest of Europe, helped Bergman to regain the attention and acclaim that he had enjoyed in the '50s and '60s and also to give him the financial security and confidence to continue making films.

The intensity and unfaltering realism of Scenes from a Marriage is testimony of Bergman's skill as a writer and director, but also of the talent of his two lead actors, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, both of whom put in a thoroughly convincing performance.  With the detachment and precision of skilled pathologist dissecting a corpse, Bergman takes us on a journey in which we witness a seemingly idyllic marriage gradually fall apart as husband and wife awaken to the imperfections in their conjugal life.

And it's a genuinely harrowing experience, watching two sympathetic, full-bloodied characters put themselves through the mill in some kind of psychological sadomasochistic ritual that sees them trying to break up but yet not quite making it.  In the course of the film, Johan and Marianne realise that there is a bond between them that cannot be severed, like the root of some pernicious weed running deep, deep into the earth which cannot be pulled up no matter how hard you try.

It is a bond that will unite the couple until death, a much deeper love than they can comprehend or articulate.  The things that drive them apart - an imperfect sex life being the main factor - are ultimately shown to be the least important things in their relationship.  What unites them is something that defies explanation, something precious and fundamentally human, something that remains when all passion has been spent and all the crockery smashed.  What remains, alive and untarnished in the debris of a failed marriage, is that most primitive, most incomprehensible, most wonderful of human experiences - love.

Scenes from a Marriage is fundamentally a love story, but it reverses the sequence of events that we see in most romantic dramas.  The two protagonists only become aware of their love when they begin to drift apart.  Perversely, it is the act of separation and the end of their marriage that makes them realise what they mean to one another, how deep their love for one another truly is.

This probably sounds like high class soap, and to some extent it is.  Bergman's approach is as rigorous, intelligent and incisive as ever, but it is also extraordinarily accessible.  Scenes from a Marriage contains some of his most beautiful writing and his most perfectly realised characters, and it is this which explains its enduring widespread appeal. Because the film was made on such a low budget, Bergman had to rely more heavily on the power of his script than in many of his earlier cinematic works.

This focus and austerity is what gives the film its intimacy and impact.  The spectator is drawn into the confined, rather solitary world of Johan and Marianne and is compelled to watch as the two characters bare their souls and unleash a torrent of raw emotion that, at times, is almost too painful to watch.  Yet the experience of watching this film is one that stays with you and helps make you more aware of your own relationships with others, particularly those you love.

Thirty years on, Bergman picked up the story of Johan and Marianne in his final film, Saraband (2003).  Like Scenes from a Marriage , this was originally commissioned for Swedish television, but was subsequently released in cinemas, to great acclaim, across the world.

Film Synopsis

Johan and Marianne have what seems to be the perfect marriage.  They have been together for ten years, have two children, and have settled into a life of domestic bliss.  Then, suddenly, Johan announces that he is going to leave Marianne for another woman.  After a period apart, husband and wife come together to prepare for their divorce.  Their marriage is over, they both acknowledge that.  Yet, somehow, the process of separation proves to be far harder than they had thought...