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Autumn Sonata, 1978
Eva (Liv Ullmann) is a writer and also a decent piano player, but she has always lived in the shadow of her mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman), a brilliant concert pianist. Eva lives with her husband Viktor (Halvar Bjork) and her disabled sister, Helena (Lena Nyman). The film follows a single day during which Charlotte comes to visit. And what starts as a merely a somewhat tense family visit soon morphs into a painful airing out of past grievances.
This is a harrowing look at one woman’s cathartic expression of long-held pain, and another woman’s ability (or lack thereof) to acknowledge that pain.
For the first 25 or so minutes of this film, I thought that the whole thing would be made up of undercurrents. It’s obvious from the first conversation they share that there are long-held tensions bubbling underneath Eva and Charlotte’s relationship. In an early scene, Eva plays a piano piece for her mother who deliberately withholds praise for her performance (“Did you like my interpretation?” . . . . “I liked you”. Ouch.) Charlotte then plays her own interpretation of the piece, leaving Eva humiliated.
But the film takes a sharp turn when, in the middle of the night, Charlotte awakens with the belief that she is being smothered. Shaken from the nightmare, she wanders into the living room where Eva soon joins her. It’s not too long before Eva is airing out all of the scars and slights from her childhood, and specifically calling out Charlotte’s selfish behavior and the impact it had on their entire family.
And wowza! Eva lays out an almost prosecutorial case against Charlotte as a mother and as a wife. She recounts her desperate attempts to meet her mother’s expectations----reading books she did not understand, trying to mold herself into a daughter who could be loved. Charlotte’s performance as a mother was never overtly abusive or negligent. And all of her selfish choices are ones that she can---and clearly has---explain away or justify, the language that Eva uses to express her hurt is cutting. “I couldn’t be myself, not even when I was alone” is just awful to hear. And even more awful because we can see that the echoes of that mentality still hover around Eva. She cannot shake herself of her need for her mother’s approval, even as she realizes how unhealthy it is.
Ullmann’s performance as Eva is quietly scorching. This is a woman who has held back the floodgates for decades, and now it’s all coming out. Bergman meets this onslaught with the practiced deflection of a woman who has excused her own narcissism for longer than her daughter has been alive. But as Eva digs into the impact on herself, the impact on her father, and the impact on Helena, Charlotte’s long-held walls slowly start to show cracks.
Dancing around the edges of Eva and Charlotte’s discussion are Viktor and Helena. Viktor overhears the conversation, and even pauses a moment to listen to a painful confession that he may or may not have been aware of regarding a previous partner and pregnancy of Eva’s, but ultimately leaves the two women to themselves. Helena, on the flip side, becomes increasingly agitated as she overhears the argument. Painfully wrenching herself out of bed, she pulls herself to the staircase landing and pitifully screams, “Mama, come!” to no response.
It’s hard to watch, of course, but at the same time the film is not merely a screed against parents---or maybe specifically mothers---who do not spend enough time with their children, are unfaithful, or have unreasonable standards. Instead, it positions this conversation as a necessary relieving of tension, the lancing of a wound, so that moving forward with a healthy relationship might someday be possible. As Charlotte later debriefs with a friend, her own reflections on her children reveal that she is still unwilling to take responsibility for her actions, but the film is not without hope that she might change.
This film is more subdued than most of the films I’ve seen from Bergman. 90% of the film is just two people having a conversation at a table. I found it captivating, but I realize not everyone might feel the same way. I would definitely highly recommend it.
Autumn Sonata, 1978
Eva (Liv Ullmann) is a writer and also a decent piano player, but she has always lived in the shadow of her mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman), a brilliant concert pianist. Eva lives with her husband Viktor (Halvar Bjork) and her disabled sister, Helena (Lena Nyman). The film follows a single day during which Charlotte comes to visit. And what starts as a merely a somewhat tense family visit soon morphs into a painful airing out of past grievances.
This is a harrowing look at one woman’s cathartic expression of long-held pain, and another woman’s ability (or lack thereof) to acknowledge that pain.
For the first 25 or so minutes of this film, I thought that the whole thing would be made up of undercurrents. It’s obvious from the first conversation they share that there are long-held tensions bubbling underneath Eva and Charlotte’s relationship. In an early scene, Eva plays a piano piece for her mother who deliberately withholds praise for her performance (“Did you like my interpretation?” . . . . “I liked you”. Ouch.) Charlotte then plays her own interpretation of the piece, leaving Eva humiliated.
But the film takes a sharp turn when, in the middle of the night, Charlotte awakens with the belief that she is being smothered. Shaken from the nightmare, she wanders into the living room where Eva soon joins her. It’s not too long before Eva is airing out all of the scars and slights from her childhood, and specifically calling out Charlotte’s selfish behavior and the impact it had on their entire family.
And wowza! Eva lays out an almost prosecutorial case against Charlotte as a mother and as a wife. She recounts her desperate attempts to meet her mother’s expectations----reading books she did not understand, trying to mold herself into a daughter who could be loved. Charlotte’s performance as a mother was never overtly abusive or negligent. And all of her selfish choices are ones that she can---and clearly has---explain away or justify, the language that Eva uses to express her hurt is cutting. “I couldn’t be myself, not even when I was alone” is just awful to hear. And even more awful because we can see that the echoes of that mentality still hover around Eva. She cannot shake herself of her need for her mother’s approval, even as she realizes how unhealthy it is.
Ullmann’s performance as Eva is quietly scorching. This is a woman who has held back the floodgates for decades, and now it’s all coming out. Bergman meets this onslaught with the practiced deflection of a woman who has excused her own narcissism for longer than her daughter has been alive. But as Eva digs into the impact on herself, the impact on her father, and the impact on Helena, Charlotte’s long-held walls slowly start to show cracks.
Dancing around the edges of Eva and Charlotte’s discussion are Viktor and Helena. Viktor overhears the conversation, and even pauses a moment to listen to a painful confession that he may or may not have been aware of regarding a previous partner and pregnancy of Eva’s, but ultimately leaves the two women to themselves. Helena, on the flip side, becomes increasingly agitated as she overhears the argument. Painfully wrenching herself out of bed, she pulls herself to the staircase landing and pitifully screams, “Mama, come!” to no response.
It’s hard to watch, of course, but at the same time the film is not merely a screed against parents---or maybe specifically mothers---who do not spend enough time with their children, are unfaithful, or have unreasonable standards. Instead, it positions this conversation as a necessary relieving of tension, the lancing of a wound, so that moving forward with a healthy relationship might someday be possible. As Charlotte later debriefs with a friend, her own reflections on her children reveal that she is still unwilling to take responsibility for her actions, but the film is not without hope that she might change.
This film is more subdued than most of the films I’ve seen from Bergman. 90% of the film is just two people having a conversation at a table. I found it captivating, but I realize not everyone might feel the same way. I would definitely highly recommend it.