Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) (1978)
Average Rating: 8/10
Reviews Counted: 19
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 1
liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 6,775
My Rating
Movie Info
Ingrid Bergman, the Swedish expatriate who became one of Hollywood's greatest stars, and Ingmar Bergman, one of the world's most acclaimed filmmakers and Sweden's most honored director, worked together for the first and only time in this intensely personal drama about the troubled relationship between a mother and daughter. Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) is an acclaimed concert pianist who is visiting her daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann), the wife of a parson in a rural community, for the first time in
Jan 1, 1978 Wide
Jan 11, 2000
Cast
-
Ingrid Bergman
Charlotte -
Liv Ullmann
Eva -
Lena Nyman
Helena -
Halvar Björk
Viktor -
Georg Løkkeberg
Leonardo -
Erland Josephson
Josef -
Gunnar Bjornstrand
Paul -
Eva von Hanno
Nurse -
Linn Ullmann
Eva as a child -
Ame Bang-Hansen
Uncle Otto -
Marianne Aminoff
Charlotte's private sec... -
Mimi Pollak
Piano instructor -
Knut Wigert
Professor -
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All Critics (20) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (18) | Rotten (1) | DVD (7)
The movie makes good chamber music: it's a crafted miniature with Bergman's usual bombast built, for once, into the plot requirements.
Of course Bergman's actresses suffer superbly in microscopic close-up, but the nagging doubt persists as to whether this is incisive psychodrama or just those old nordic blues again.
This is not a comfortable movie, but it isn't meant to be. It's a difficult work, but that very difficulty is what makes it rewarding.
Ingmar says, "No." Ingrid says, "Yes." They're both right and both wrong, but it is Ingrid, in her last feature film performance, whose "Yes" carries more conviction and authority.
This very good Ingrid and Ingmar Bergman film is very easy to love for its honesty and passion ...
There is too much talk, talk, talk about feelings and not enough demonstration of them, but like cream, Ingrid keeps rising to the top of the chatter.
Ingrid Bergman won her last Oscar nomination for her very last feature in this intense mother-daughter melodrama, directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Though Ingrid and Ingmar Bergman aren't related, their pairing on a movie set was a long-anticipated event
Probes in an intelligent and affecting way the ambivalent feelings in mother-daughter relationships
With its raw performances and lyrical dialogue this is a sombre, resonant, lingering drama about family dysfunction and emotional frustration.
[It] absolutely overwhelms our senses and becomes for 92 minutes the only reality we can know.
Audience Reviews for Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata)
Super Reviewer
Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullman are simply amazing together as a mother and daughter combination from hell. Ingrid Bergman is terrific, despite a deliberately naff hairdo which makes her look like Queen Elizabeth II of the UK rather than the faded beauty she is. Liv Ullman also has visual nuances to enhance her character - the glasses, platted hair and jumpers enabling this beautiful woman to look frumpy.
The acting is simply amazing, even through the subtitles you can tell. Fortunately Scandinavian vocal nuance is similar enough to English to enable us non-Swedish speakers to appreciate the acting.
Of course, it has the Ingmar Bergman darkness to it. The sister with the horrible degenerative disease, the drowned toddler, the selfishness of the Ingrid Bergman character. If you get depressed along with the characters in films like this, you might be better off giving this one a miss.
But for those with a taste for this type of claustrophobic drama, this is one of the most powerful films you will ever see.
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- Autumn Sonata (Herbstsonate) (DE)
- Autumn Sonata (Herbstsonate) (UK)


Top Critic