Saraband Reviews

Saraband is a commandingly restrained final composition and -- as the theme of classical musicianship suggests -- very much an affair of close attention to the nuances of performance.

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Bergman has a sharp talent for observing human conflicts without claiming to fully understand them.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

So many great directors seem to go out with a whimper. Ingmar Bergman has gone out with a bang.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10

With Saraband, the great writer-director has stepped back into the ring for one last epic wrestle with his demons. There is, as always, no easy outcome. But no one ever fought for higher emotional and spiritual stakes.

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We find [Bergman]at 87, sifting through his pictures, wondering at the choices he's made.

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A parlour-room theatre of emotional cruelty, with all exits barred by the past.

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It goes without saying that Saraband doesn't make for light hearted viewing. But this is a powerful, emotional family drama that can happily rank with some of Bergman's best work.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

No one else could have made it, and you should see it.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

Insightful as ever but a little dated in the set-up and treatment of the shooting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Powerful and more than a little depressing, but it's also essential filmmaking for anyone who cares about one of the giants of cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

Any Bergman is better than most of the art-house dramas that have been shipped to the States from Europe in recent times.

Full Review | Original Score: B

While bringing an abundance of inspiration to this world, Bergman unapologetically refused to ignore the pain and darkness that infects mankind. There will never be another filmmaker like him.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

confessional outbursts are captured in lengthy takes, usually in mercilessly tight close-ups.... It's as if Bergman is taking X-rays of their souls.

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Even if it is, as he claims, his last film, Saraband will be a testament to Bergman's skill as a filmmaker, still a creative force to be reckoned with after 60-plus years in the business.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

The performances -- welling, unified and multidimensional -- are beyond praise, as are Bergman's visual images.

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Like the best of Ingmar Bergman's films, Saraband has a hypnotic quality that draws in audiences who are patient.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

A haunting series of heartbreaking duets between people for whom love is distant and death is uncomfortably close.

| Original Score: 3.5/4

Most films are so insipid that there's something perversely refreshing about a movie in which a monstrous father compliments his son for his 'healthy dose of hatred...'

| Original Score: '3/4'

Bergman is still at the top of his game, every bit as much in control of his faculties for deciphering human misery.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

Rumored to be the Swedish maestro's swansong, this is a major work with all the thematic and formal features, an uncompromisingly harrowing family portrait.

Full Review | Original Score: A-