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Ingmar Bergman's self-declared final
film "Saraband" is a masterpiece. Period. It's also one of his
greatest films and one of the all-time great closing statements of a
film director - to be ranked alongside Robert Bresson's "L'Argent", Andrei Tarkovsky's "Sacrifice" and Sergei Paradjanov's
"Ashik-Kerib".
The general meaning ascribed to
the title "Saraband" by the film critics has been an "erotic
dance for two". And because its ten sections (each
preceded with an intertitle) involve only two characters at a
time, most critics feel they have discovered the director's
intention behind the title of the film. But is this really the
case? A "Saraband" is a musical term, which refers to one
of the most soulfully beautiful and deeply
searching pieces in all Classical Music. In J.S. Bach's
music the Saraband was raised to the highest height of musical
spiritual expression. While all of his Sarabands (and he wrote a lot
of them) are stunning, the ones he wrote as part of his "Cello
Suites" are particularly amazing. In this film, Bergman uses the
Saraband from Bach's Fifth Cello Suite - the same piece,
incidentally, that Mstislav Rostropovich performed at Tarkovsky's
funeral. It's truly a piece for the end of the road - even for the
end of the world - full of melancholic beauty, introspection
and regret and a deep inner longing to return to the Home of
our spiritual origin. And Bergman's film resonates on this
frequency. Hence, the significance of the film's title. By the way,
there is splendid use of other classical music throughout this
film, including an incredible scene where Johan places his head
between two speakers blasting out the Scherzo movement of Bruckner's
Ninth Symphony.
A brief mention should also be
made about the stunning look of the
film, which was shot on HD digital video, and makes one regret
the late arrival of a technology that could have been of great use
to this genius of the cinema. The finely delineated textures of the
mise-en-scene and the rich immediacy of the actors faces creates an
overwhelmingly vivid canvas for Bergman to weave his magic on.
The masterful chiaroscuro compositions so identifiable with
long-time Bergman cinematographer Sven Nykvist have been beautifully
rendered in this film by a team of three(!) cinematographers. Scene
after scene, the interplay of light and shadow reminds one of the
work of Rembrandt and Caravaggio. There are also plenty of
self-references, such as the scene in the church, where rays of
light pour through a side window, reminding one of the streaming
light in "Winter Light".
The film itself is like a
beautifully woven basket that is full of poisonous snakes.
Here, Bergman plays the master of deception, the snake charmer - it
is as if he is saying, life itself is full of wrong turns and
self-deceptions and then suddenly it's over, just like that. It's a
hard-won point of view from a man approaching ninety, who feels
things through his art more deeply than just about any other
person on this planet.
In terms of the story, Bergman
leads us to believe that he has created a sequel to his 1974
soap-opera drama "Scenes from a Marriage" (despite popular
consensus, not one of his better efforts.) But this is not
so. Bergman merely uses the reunion, after 30 estranged years,
of Marianne (radiantly played by Liv Ullmann) and Johan
(consummately performed by Erland Josephson) as a framing
device to explore much deeper territory. Any person expecting to see
"Scenes" Part Two will, thankfully, not get what they came to see.
What they will get is Bergman in top form, where sharp turn
follows sharp turn, leading us into areas of moral
ambiguity where people can no
longer hide under delusional cloaks of respectability. And presiding
over the events, Ullmann often appears like the mysterious
mute actress in "Persona", listening to and witnessing the moral
plights of those around her.
For Bergman this is undoubtedly
the end of life's road. And there is an unmistakable aura of
the Final Judgment which pervades this film, a sense
which actually underscores all his best work (from the "Seventh
Seal" to his "Trilogy of Faith" to "Hour of the Wolf" and "Shame" to
"Cries and Whispers" and all the way to "Fanny and Alexander"). It
is in this context that one of the principle characters, Henrik
(Johan's son) proclaims, "sometimes I feel that an incredible
punishment is waiting for me."
Indeed, Henrik (in
a virtuosic performance by Borje Ahlstedt, who previously
played Uncle Carl in "Fanny and Alexander") may be the character
most at the core of this haunted and haunting film. He is
both an aristocratic performer (witness his amazing organ
performance of Bach's last Trio Sonata) and a "pitiable" man, a
term used by Marianne to also describe her present feelings
towards Johan. He is deeply flawed, but unlike his father, he
lives moment to moment the nightmarish reality of his
inadequacies. Failing to recover from the death of his
beautiful wife two years before, Henrik, a
semi-successful cellist, seeks a soulmate in his
equally-beautiful teenage daughter, Karin (in an awe-inspiring
performance by Bergman newcomer Julia Dufvenius), also a cellist.
The relationship between the father and daughter has more than
likely crossed the line into incest (Bergman drops many hints but
never states it blatantly.) Karin, like Marianne, is spiritually
superior to the men in the film and eventually finds the strength to
sever her ties with her father and pursue her own course in music
and in life, which then leads to devastating
consequences.
The women in the film do
exhibit profound empathy for the pathetic plights of their courser
companions. It is, however, an understanding that
is essentially wrong. Despite their fine and noble intentions,
these women become patsies for their male counterparts,
often ending up indulging those male weaknesses for years just
because they themselves have not developed the proper moral
barometer. Indeed, even at the end of his life, Bergman has
fashioned a film that is in search of such a moral
imperative. It is as if, coming to the end of his earthly road,
Bergman recognizes with horror that none of the important questions
of life and death have been solved through art or through "living".
There is a bleak, half-hearted entreaty that these questions
will somehow fair better in the hands of succeeding generations.
But, Bergman being Bergman knows better: they never do. For most,
moral accountability will be the final horror.
Whether they believe in God or not, man's fate is governed by the
Laws of Creation, which exist regardless of human
acknowledgment. In an amazing display of the Creator's Love for His
Work, these Living Laws guide men unerringly to experience for
themselves the consequences of their actions. Man must then
adjust himself to these Laws or be crushed. The only moral dilemma
is why mankind so stubbornly resists learning these
natural lessons, often preferring a life (and death) full
of darkness, misery and discontent. In a conversation between
two of the greatest existential philosophers of the 20th century,
Martin Buber explained his view of man's moral situation to Lev
Shestov:
We are wrong to believe ourselves superior to these events,
to believe that we know what is bad, that we possess the light, to
talk about Spirit....I have lost most of my faith in the
individual and even more in the collective. We have reached a
frontier. It is the end of the road. We do not know where to go
next. We must find what must be done - but nobody has found as
yet. It is very different from the advent of Christianity; then
John the Baptist announced that the Kingdom of God was
approaching; something was on its way, something one was going to
be able to touch... Today the pillar that was holding the ceiling
has crumbled... Nothing is approaching. It is again the same
darkness as was then but without the pillar, without a way to
follow. Clearly, I am not talking about miracles, the possibility
of being saved by God; I am talking about man's part in the human
action and today that part is compromised. To begin with, one
should become conscious of darkness, to let sink in the idea that
it's only a darkness - that alone would allow to start searching
for a way out, for light. (Friday, April 13th, 1934)
As if in
response to Buber's courageous and desperate search for the Light, a
special book appeared in Germany around that time: "In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message"
by a man writing under the name of Abd-ru-shin. Here are a few quotes
from it, relating directly to Buber's concerns:
"But today there will be no recurrence of
what happened in Christ's time! At that time the Word came!
Mankind had their free will, and the majority then decided to
reject and repudiate this Word! From that time onwards they were
subject to the Laws, which were automatically linked to the free
decision then carried out in this way. Thereafter men found all
the fruits of their own volition on their self-chosen path.
Soon the ring will close. Things are piling up
ever more, rising like a rampart which will soon collapse and
crash down upon mankind, who go on living unsuspectingly in
spiritual apathy. Finally, at the time of fulfillment, they will
naturally no longer have the free choice!
They must now just reap what they sowed at that
time, and also later on their wrong ways.
All who once rejected the Word at the time of
Christ are today reincarnated on this earth to settle accounts.
Now they no longer have the right to be forewarned, and to make a
second decision. In the two thousand years they have had time
enough to change their minds! Also he who absorbs a wrong
interpretation of God and His Creation, and does not exert himself
to grasp it more purely, has not absorbed It at all.
Indeed, it is far worse, for a wrong belief keeps one back
from grasping the Truth."
"At present many a person very often thinks: If
tribulation and destruction are to be expected in order to bring
about a great purification, then God must be so just as to send
out in advance preachers calling for repentance. Man must
certainly be forewarned. Where is John who proclaims what is to
come?
These are wretched ones who think themselves so
wise, but are so empty-minded! Such cries merely conceal an
utterly hollow presumption. They would only scourge him and throw
him into prison!" (from the chapter "What Separates So Many from
the Light Today?" by Abd-ru-shin, "In the Light of Truth: The Grail
Message".)
"Do not imagine that God will now simply lift you
out of the loathsome swamp which keeps clinging to you with great
tenacity, with the same tenacity as you applied in forming such a
swamp through your rigid stubbornness against the Will of God!
God does not lift you out of it through gratitude
that you at last show some signs of being willing! Oh no, you
must work yourselves out of it, just as you allowed
yourselves to sink into it!
You must exert yourselves, exert yourselves
honestly and with great diligence, so as to be able to come up
again on to healthy ground! Only when you do this
will you be given the strength you need, but always and only in
the same measure as your volition. This is inexorably demanded by
the Justice which lies in God.
And therein lies the help which is promised
you, the help you will receive in the very moment when your inner
volition has at last become deed, not before!
To help you achieve this, however, the Word
has been brought to you as a gift from God, the Word
which shows in all clearness the path you must follow if you wish
to save yourselves! In the Word lies the Grace which God
gives in His incomprehensible Love, as has already happened once
through Jesus.
The Word is the gift! The great
sacrifice of God, however, is the deed - to send the
Word as far as to the Gross Material Worlds, to you men here, a
mission always connected with great suffering because of man's
attitude, which through his stubborn conceit is one of hostility
towards the Light! And nobody else can give the true Word to
mankind but a Part of the Word Itself. The Bringer of the Living
Word must therefore also be from the Word
Itself!"
"Whether you really still wish to save yourselves
is solely your concern; for this God-Perfection, which made
the great sacrifice of God a necessary consequence, now also
demands the destruction of everything in the entire Creation that
cannot voluntarily adjust itself according to the Laws of His
Will.
There is neither mercy nor escape in this matter,
no exception or deviation, but solely the outworking according to
the Laws in Creation through the closing of the cycle of all past
actions." (from the chapter "Do Not Fall in Temptation"
by Abd-ru-shin, "In the Light of Truth: The Grail
Message".)
"It is just by demanding spiritual alertness
right from the beginning, together with an earnest volition
and self-exertion for the understanding of his words, that a
helper easily separates the grain from the chaff already at the
outset. An automatic working lies in this, as it is in the Divine
Laws. Here, too, men receive exactly according to their actual
volition." (from the chapter "The Call for the Helper" by Abd-ru-shin, "In the Light of Truth: The Grail
Message".)
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