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'Saraband': A bittersweet reunion for Bergman's famous couple

It has been 30 years since divorced couple Johan and Marianne last saw each other. On a whim, Marianne decides to contact her ex-husband. Life's tapering years spur such impulses, turning foolish ideas into philosophical imperatives. Doors that were left ajar must be shut or bravely walked through. The tentacular force of love exerts a mighty grip.

Ingmar Bergman's "Saraband" reunites Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann), the love-hate couple from the octogenarian's 1973 "Scenes from a Marriage," which aired on Swedish television as a six-part series before it was telescoped into a single digestible movie for American consumption. "Scenes" remains a devastating and consummate journey into the intricacies of marital politics, pain and dissolution.

Sony Pictures Classics 'Saraband' 3 out of 5 stars Director: Ingmar Bergman Starring: Gunnel Fred, Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Borje Ahlstedt, Julia Dufvenius Run time: 120 minutes Release date: July 8, 2005 Rating: R for brief nudity, language and a violent image. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Saraband"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

The early film is not required viewing, though the full emotional dimensions of "Saraband," made for Swedish television in 2003, could elude the uninitiated. When Johan and Marianne are on screen together, a wistful ache of what once was and how it crumbled tinges the moment. They're like a shattered dish glued back together, its fissures plainly visible.

The movie is structured in 10 dialogues, each with its own classical musical theme, and in the prologue, Marianne (the red-headed Ullmann is as lovely and natural as ever), speaks directly to us about her decision to see Johan. She is now 63 and a successful lawyer. Johan, an academic, is a shocking 86, yet still hale, lucid and incorrigibly waspish.

Their 30-year reunion begins with a stolen kiss on Johan's cheek and unfolds jovially, with small sighs and tentative handholding, at Johan's idyllic lake house. Sweetly the couple catches up on everything from their distant adult daughters to his new fortune (millions through an inheritance), before the visit becomes a welter of family dysfunction that the old lovers attempt to quell. This being a Bergman film, shot through with rancor and sorrow, Marianne seems to sense the coming storm. Well before it hits, she turns to the camera and declares that her visit "was a mistake."

Bergman shifts attention from the cordial couple to the destructive relationship between Henrik, Johan's 61-year-old son from an earlier marriage, and his teenage daughter Karin (Julia Dufvenius). Henrik (Bšrje Ahlstedt) is a music professor who wants the best for Karin, a budding cellist with great promise. Yet, after the death of his wife, Anna, whom he cherished, Henrik has Karin in a stranglehold of co-dependence. His inability to let go of her is destroying their relationship. With this, Johan and Marianne have their hands full, robbing time from their reunion. Their almost parental teamwork amid the emotional drama puts the durability of their relationship to the test once again.

Long ago, a saraband was a torrid erotic dance for two, though eroticism finds no place here. The film does, however, drip with love of the deepest kind — familial and romantic. Bergman weaves fine emotional threads — hatred, fear, loss, despair — into a wider existential net, making his characters grapple with the perplexities of life and the impossibility of enduring love.

He is, as usual, preoccupied with the pain humans cause each other, and he communicates it with skill so effortless it's easy to take it for granted. Bergman has always cross-pollinated his dexterity in film and theater, and this quasi-chamber drama, driven by superior acting and eloquent camerawork, melds the strengths of both forms. The language is direct and fierce. Scenes, even simple conversations, wriggle out of stasis with bursts of movement. And Bergman flecks his realism with tasteful expressionism (the walls are a fiery red when Henrik assaults Karin, for instance).

"Saraband" isn't pleasure viewing, except in its emotional satisfactions — the purge of tragedy and closure of reconciliation. It's a hard, autumnal look at the evolution of romantic love, tracing when romance dies and resentment fades and lifelong friendship is forged.