Script by Ingmar Bergman film directed by Liv Ullman. An Adult film about desire, regret, selfishness. Faithless opens on an island, Faro, where an old man (Erland Josephson), The old man is visited by a character he partly remembers & partly creates, Marianne (Lena Endre, who is tremendous in the very sort of complex
role that Ullman used to play so brilliantly Marianne is an actress (is she real or a ghost or dream? Or perhaps she never existed, & the whole event is a fiction.). She's also the nurturing mother of 9-year-old Isabelle (Michelle Gylemo) & contented wife of a world-famous conductor named Markus (Thomas Hanzon). Within minutes, Marianne is telling the old man how her happy life came apart, & though he listens attentively, it appears that he's also anticipating the story she has to tell, as if he knows it all too well. (Is it his story?) One of the only requirements Bergman made of Ullman was that Lena Endra appear in this starring role. She has a great likeness of the younger Ullman. The film revisits Bergman's most well-rehearsed themes loss, guilt, & remorse. The screenplay is based on an incident of infidelity in Bergman's life half a century ago. Faithless runs 2 ˝ hours; it is vintage Bergman in its preoccupation with the interior life. Ullman also the shot the film in the relentless close-ups, angry guilt ridden bursts of dialogue & in the long pauses which Bergman is known for. A good deal of the film consists of close-ups of Marianne?s tear-stained face as the character deals with her guilt & sorrow over her infidelity, divorce, & the child custody battle. It is really dynamite film making. It is a very intimate film. All of Marianne?s conversations with Bergman are done in his actual studio on Faro Island in Sweden. Ullmann (Marianne) is Bergman?s former lover, with whom she has a daughter. The quotation at the start of the movie from Botho Strauss is so true & important summarized by me as divorce as a descent into hell & havoc. 5 stars
September 21, 2010
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