“When you speak of travelling I really want to say yes. But at the same time a wall appears. I can’t speak. I can’t show that I’m happy. I can see your face, I know you’re you, but I can’t reach you. I’m on the outside of this wall. I put myself on the outside. I fled and now I’m so far away.”
It is not easy to write a well-structured text about this film with a common thread from beginning to end. Because in this film, as in many of his previous films, Bergman deals with a huge number of different themes. Starting with loneliness and illness, loss, grief, animal cruelty, emotional distance, fears, alcoholism, through to infidelity, depression, psychological and physical violence, fear of loss, defamation and finally suicide.
The story itself plays a less important role, but who literally plays an important role are the actors, who portray the fragility and the credible interpersonal relationships in a wonderfully painful way. So, let’s just briefly outline the structure of the film. At the beginning, Andreas is introduced, who has built up such a strong emotional distance through his divorced marriage that it is no longer possible for him to come back from this distance, and this coldness can be felt throughout the film. Through Anna, who recently lost her son and her husband in a car accident and who left her bag with Andreas when she used the phone, Andreas makes the acquaintance of the married couple Elis and Eva. A film full of emotional outbursts, unhappy relationships, lies, etc. unfolds.
After Andreas has had dinner with the Vergerus family for the first time, Anna is already convicted of the first lies about her seemingly perfect family, as the letter from her husband (also called Andreas) reveals the opposite. This letter, which has been seen before, shows almost too obviously that sooner or later these words will become reality.
Quick remark: the breaks in the film with the real actors explaining their characters may be interesting to watch, but they take away some of the film’s impact and a Bergman can trust his viewers to be able to interpret the characters without this classification.
After the first acquaintances have been made and Elis, who is a successful but unhappy architect in his profession, has once again been away for a long time, Andreas is visited by Eva. A beautiful scene is shown in which they are separated by the fire that Andreas has set earlier, which can certainly serve as an analogy for the sprouting fire of the relationship between the two. Because the affair between the two is imminent. Eva is unhappy with her marriage, she still wants to achieve and experience things, but Elis holds her back and the hourglass keeps running and running. This is a theme that is taken up again and again in the film. Unhappy relationships that never end and then end in even more unhappy years. When Andreas says goodbye after their short but concise night, this is the first and last time he can be said to have genuine feelings, or are they just an act?
A little later, while Andreas is at Elis‘ mill, where Elis keeps an almost infinite number of photos of all kinds of portraits and it is now Andreas’ turn to be photographed. The two are visited by Eva, who mentions in a moment when the two are alone that she is not angry or jealous that Andreas has now entered a romantic relationship with Anna. At first, this conversation seems rather confusing, as nothing at all is shown of the beginnings of the apparently new love affair. It’s quite possible that Bergman deliberately removed these scenes to show that, unlike Eva and Andreas, where real feelings were involved, Anna and Andreas’ relationship is more about purpose than real love. It’s also interesting to see that after the first dinner, Anna hasn’t played a role up to this point and, in reverse, Eva will no longer play a role.
The relationship between the two is largely harmonious without any real romantic affection, another exciting scene in the film is Anna’s dream. This dream is a direct continuation of the previous film ‘Shame’, in which Anna wanders around lost and longing for help, the final cry when she sees bodies from an alleged plane crash in times of war is heartbreaking.
Now it’s time to turn our attention to the animal cruelties. Johan Andersson, an old, sick man who lives alone due to unfortunate coincidences and who has already been in an institution before, must be an animal abuser and murderer. In any case, the people on the island firmly believe this, threaten, humiliate and even become violent towards him. He cannot and will not suffer these accusations and humiliations any longer and therefore hangs himself. With this public defamation Bergman shows his social critic, a scapegoat is quickly chosen and as soon as the community has agreed on this, it is no longer important whether he really committed the offences or not. The film ‘The Hunt’ by Thomas Vinterberg, which is well worth seeing, also deals with precisely this topic.
Back to Andreas and Anna’s relationship, an impressive scene in which Liv Ullmann’s acting shines is the one in which she looks directly into the camera and talks about her previous relationship and is obviously lying again. Andreas also lies about the fact that he didn’t have an affair with Eva. The two get into more and more arguments, the dialogue scene between the two before the end, which can definitely be rated as the strongest in the film, shows once again that the two have no future together, Andreas is so emotionally distant that he can no longer enter into any profound interpersonal relationships, and his enormous fear of humiliation means that he will remain isolated forever. The arguments escalate and the sentence in the letter comes to life.
When Anna picks up Andreas after a barn is set on fire (so Johan Andersson was obviously not the animal abuser), he confesses to her that this relationship has no future and that the two of them must separate. Anna sits in the car with a deadpan expression and becomes ever faster and more careless. There is a tense fear that the tragedy will repeat itself and Anna will cause another car accident, presumably her ex-husband has spoken the same honest words in the car and Anna’s fear of loss has caused an accident. This time things go off without a hitch, Andreas escapes alive, gets out of the car and walks confused back and forth. Bergman ends with his own words: ‘This time his name was Andreas Winkelman’. This is an allusion to the fact that there will be more ‘victims’ through Anna. In the poster above, it can also be seen that only Anna’s second photo differs from the rest, which may be a hint that she plays a sanctimonious game.
In his last film of the so-called Fårö trilogy and Bergman’s only second color film, he shows unhappy and dissatisfied people in difficult interpersonal relationships who are struggling with fears and loneliness. Even if this film cannot be compared with Bergman’s great works, it is well worth seeing and superbly acted.
