Faithless
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Movie Reviews of Faithless
Movie Review: Penetrating exploration of feelings
Summary: 5 Stars
Some viewers complained that the movie is boring. I was so mesmerized by it that although I caught it on one of my Fio channels at 1:00 a.m., I had to watch it to the end, at 3:30 a.m. This is one of the most compelling of Bergman's scripts. Although he had often dealt with remorse before, I don't remember him focusing with such intensity on a young girl--Marianne's daughter--the innocent victim of her mother's faithlessness. Whenever Marianne remembers how she wrecked her daughter's life through her reckless affair with the director Bergman, her anguish is so searing and visceral that it seems the world has just stopped breathing. It is here that Lena Endre's riveting performance transcends even its excellent self, reaching a spiritual depth (or is it height?) that holds us captive in her and our own humanity. The wages of sin is a cliche that doesn't begin to unpack the poignancy of the mother's regret, always mixed with a devilish sense of irresponsibility which sweeps her along to further exploits of adultery. She is helplessly trapped in her affair while her daughter is left alone and irreparably damaged. It is the painful rift between mother and daughter that gives this drama its profound tragic sense, akin to the relentless familial devastations of Greek tragedy.
Bergman's script surprises not only in its insight into a mother-daughter relationship, but also in its articulation of a woman's emotional world. As far as I can remember, no other work of his puts the woman's inner world front and center and explores it with lucidity, detail, and eloquence. The only question I have for Bergman--wherever he is now--concerns his view of infidelity as human fate, sealed within our human DNA. There is no Bergman without betrayal. Moreover, his betraying husbands and wives commit their betrayals almost thoughtlessly. Yes, they are often portrayed in anguished and tragic conflicts, but these conflicts kick in after the betrayal, not before. Although in our cynical culture many view adultery as trivial, I do not and neither does Bergman, but he doesn't explain it. Was she unhappy with her husband? Was she "addicted" to her lover? Was she attracted to "sin" and the inevitable suffering it brings? Betraying a husband or a wife seems to me the mother of all betrayals, and I usually want to know why people deceive their loved ones. However, I am certainly not going to get the answer from Bergman who sees betrayal as a given, an essential human element, inseparable from love.
Ullman's direction is wonderful! It illuminates this script from within and adds warmth and color to the typically bare Bergman's setting. It furthermore rounds Bergman's harsh corners without sacrificing depth or intensity. The wind-shaped trees are so fine! And so is every piece of furniture in that room, especially the window sill where Marianne starts her astonishing story. The old director's mostly wordless reactions to Marianne's story are as artistically accomplished and moving as her shimmering verbal waterfalls. The two are thirstily drinking each other's utterances, whether in silence or in speech, for the intimate understanding and reckoning which had heretofore escaped them.
This is a masterpiece, any way you look at it.
Movie Review: As in film, so in life...
Summary: 5 Stars
Throughout his career, Bergman resisted ending his films with pat resolutions that tied up all loose ends. They almost always end ambiguously, darkly but with a hint of fragile hope.
In "Faithless," written by Bergman and directed by Liv Ullmann, this pattern continues. Confessional as are all his movies, "Faithless" is a merciless self-examination on Bergman's part of his numerous past infidelities and the pain they caused to both himself and others. In an astoundingly insightful move, Bergman structures the film as a memory. The aged dramatist (Erland Josephson) invokes his "muse," the memory of a past lover named Marianne (played by Lena Endre), and she retells the story of her adulterous involvement with the young dramatist (played by Krister Herriksson). The scenes switch between Lena speaking directly to the old dramatist in his study and dramatizations of the story Lena is telling--perhaps the play the old dramatist himself is writing (that's just how wonderfully multi-layered the script is).
Both the script and the acting are so powerful that the film--really more theatrical than cinema, one of Bergman's famous "chamber pieces"--at times is almost too painful to watch. Endre's range of emotions is astounding--giddy love, crushing guilt, maternal despair. Erland Josephson, the veteran Bergman ensemble actor, actually has very few lines. But his facial expressions as he listens to his muse communicate perfectly the character's guilt, nostalgia, and need to find some kind of closure on his past. Herriksson as the young dramatist is a pathetic neurotic who preys on women--as damning a self-portrait as Bergman ever wrote.
Ullmann's directing style is in the classic Bergman mode: focus on faces, long silences, spartan sets. And the film ends as it must: the old dramatist, after remembering and reliving the details of the past infidelity, is shown walking by himself on a solitary beach. Has he reached closure, or is he still haunted by the past? There's really no indication one way or the other, probably because the question offers too simple an either-or. Life is ambiguous.
Movie Review: Intelligent Adult Film Making at its Best
Summary: 5 Stars
"Faithless" brings back a type of film regrettably not made much any more:
An intimate, character-driven study of love, sex and regret.
What makes this sublime is the Bergman script, Ullman's direction and the probing acting, especially by Lena Endre.
Over 2-1/2 hours we get sucked into a story that is both deeply personal and completely universal: marriage, cheating and the aftermath.
The film is quiet, intense, and utterly spellbinding. It proves again that one of the greatest horrors you can portray on-screen is the simple act of two people trying to talk to each other.
Movie Review: Amazing....the work of 2 icons of cinema.
Summary: 5 Stars
Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman.What can I say?With no fancy talk,let's get down to business.The screenplay (by Ingmar Bergman) is terrific as always.The director,Liv Ullmann,had a great teacher.A very few times in my life I saw the reviews that this movie had...I did not see one single bad review of this movie.The worst one was 3 and half out of 4 stars.Another work of art in the long and fruitful collaboration between Liv Ullmann (the first lady of cinema) and Ingmar Bergman.(maybe the greatest filmmaker of all time.) Lena Endre is amazing on it.Is that simple.Movie Review: Fantastic film, but DVD chapter titling a problem
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is moving and gripped me from beginning to end. I have one major gripe however about the DVD. The chapter title of the last segment, which you can read on the DVD case and when you go to "menu" and "chapters" while watching, gives away a crucial plot point. It would be much better for this to remain a surprise.If you watch this film, keep your eyes averted from the case and the chapter titles until you've finished!