PRIVATE CONFESSIONS
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D.
Director: Liv Ullmann Writer: Ingmar Bergman Cast: Pernilla August, Max von Sydow, Samuel Froler, Anita Bjork, Vibeke Falk, Thomas Hanzon, Kristina Adolphson, Gunnel Fred, Hans Alfredson, Bengt Schott
If you have a problem that's wearing you down and you're looking for relief, there are two ways to get it from the movies. One: Choose an escapist movie, say, something in the Jerry Bruckheimer or Brian De Palma vein, and you'll be swept away in the clatter and imagery of action, adventure and suspense. Two: Choose the opposite, a movie that's brutally realistic (such as one written or directed by Ingmar Bergman), one that can force you to confront your problem head-on instead of trying to flee from it. From the looks of the lines at the box office, the first is more popular: but avoidance is a temporary solution. A better resolution is possible if you face your situation directly by watching others deal with similar dilemmas.
What's a typical difficulty? Marriage, of course. While 90% of all people in America get married at some time, 50% of them end up in divorce court. Can we assume that the other 50% do not lead lives of boundless cheer? Surely. If you're one of this latter group you're wondering whether to put up with the hardships and say nothing, try to work things out, or to seek a lover on the side. You're now in the same boat as the central character of Ingmar Bergman's latest work, "Private Confessions." Bergman, perhaps the most personal of directors, this time takes a back seat to Liv Ullmann whose direction gives the story a profoundly woman's touch. Shot by Sven Nykvist, the movie could almost be entitled "Anna," since Pernilla August, who performs in the role of that principal figure, is in virtually every scene.
"Private Confessions" defies the usual rules of the movie game and of the Bergman style itself. It is low on imaginative imagery, it displays few if any symbols, it is not "opened up" but rather more like a photographed play (it was, after all made for TV), and it zeroes in on just three individuals rather than painting an elaborate portrait of family life. "Private Confessions" is therefore unlike Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander," which is lavish display of extensive family ties; the Swedish filmmaker's "Wild Strawberries," which abounds in religious imagery; and "The Seventh Seal," which is a morbid study of death with a host of Biblical references. Nor does the film's theme flourish with originality. Women and men have betrayed one another on film almost since the birth of cinema.
Despite its violation of the rules of the game, it works, and works beautifully, principally because of an outstanding performance by Ms. August as a matronly woman of about thirty-six years of age who is married to a decent enough fellow, but is unhappy. After spending some time alone with a younger man, Tomas Egerman (Thomas Hanzon), she carries on an affair with him, hiding the details from her husband Henrik (Samuel Froler). When Uncle Jacob (Max von Sydow), her spiritual adviser, urges Anna to tell the absolute truth to Henrik, she rebels, as expected. She does not want to hurt her husband or threaten her relationship with her two children, unsatisfactory though her marriage may be. Eventually she does narrate all to Henrik, feels guilty, and expresses her willingness to leave him everything--house, children, reputation. Because so much of the rich, sensitive and compassionate dialogue is spoken in a normal, unhurried way, the moments of anger and anguish strike us as exceptionally intense.
The story is really a fictionalized account of Ingmar Bergman's own relationship with his troubled parents; his severe, God-fearing father and his fitful mother, whose anguish made his own childhood little better than hell. He manipulates his usual themes of death (in revealing Uncle Jacob's imminent demise), of loneliness (of all the principal characters), and of religion (by situation all three men as practitioners of Lutheran professions). The sequence of scenes, essentially five private conversations or confessions, is an interesting one. We see Anna at first telling all to her uncle, then to her husband. We flash back to her relationship with the younger Tomas, and toward the end of the picture we're back eighteen years to Anna's naive days in high school. The actors perform exquisitely and sensitively: Max von Sydow exudes severity and compassion alike, August shows her defenses and her pain in equal measure, Thomas Hanzon his character's stiffness and insecurity, and Samuel Froler the husband's agony and anger alike. "Private Confessions" uses a simple--dare we say soap-opera--format to express compassion, affliction, and redemption delicately and strikingly.
Not Rated. Running Time: 130 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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