From the Life of the Marionettes (1980 TV Movie) User Reviews

Angst is the human condition

[ferdinand1932 · 8/10 · 3 October 2009]

This is totally engaging but its almost just theater: the long scenes, still camera, monologues, exposition of internal psycho-drama and chapters that structure the entire film.

But most of all its the interest and compassion contained in the human face and voice that Bergman makes central. That had been part of Bergman's work for a long time, just look at "Through a Glass Darkly". The characters are moving through space but not able to connect with each other at all, they simulate free will but they are not able to live it.

Having said all of the above the photography and set ups are occasionally sublime, the sort of thing that was the essence of cinema, but not so any more.

Peter's got this problem

[bob998 · 8/10 · 21 February 2004]

Bergman's working with a very restricted palette here, as he did with The Rite or Winter Light. The romantic, funny touches you expect from him are missing. Peter's mind is crumbling; he's a modern Othello obsessed with his wife's fidelity amid the tasteful furniture of their elegant home. All the action is seen through the distorting lens of Peter's madness. Why would his wife say, in front of strangers, that she has to get drunk to steady her nerves at her mother-in-law's place? This is the disturbed mind at work.

The acting is fine. Robert Atzorn and Walter Schmidinger do very well as, essentially, two sides of the same coin (the stodgy businessman and the gay fashion designer). Christina Buchegger is wonderful as Katharina, the wife; her attempts to win out over Peter's psychosis give the film what drama it has.

another Bergman experiment, lots of interesting psychological bits

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 1 July 2006]

Ingmar Bergman's From the Life of the Marionettes, his last film done while in exile during the late 70's, hearkens back to his experimental period in the mid to late 60's. Here he's trying for a deconstructive way to get inside the mind of his subjects, most notably the character of Peter Egermann. The fatal flaw of the film, however, is also something that adds an unusual kind of connection to the material for a Bergman film. It's erratic in its narrative as the director tests himself with jumping around from different times around a single event. But unlike how this has been done by the likes of Tarantino, this is meant not really as a useful story trick, but to try to get different perspectives and acute angles of the subject at hand. The film doesn't reach its greatness for the same reason that it does keep itself watchable- this is very murky, depressing times, loaded with dialog that may or may not go ways to help explain or give some interest in the supporting/main characters, and some startling, if dated, surreal experiences.

It's also a little strange that Bergman decided to connect these characters, however loosely, to the couple in the first episode of the Scenes From a Marriage series, where Peter and Katarina (then played by Jan Maljsmo and Bibi Andersson) were the volatile arguers who juxtaposed the main focus of the film. Here, portrayed by Robert Atzorn and Christine Buchegger, are not only not as spot-on as the former actors (though they are still quite good and splendid in some scenes), the couple is picked under Bergman's psychological microscope where the relationship is very strained and a fatalistic. The opening scene is definitely a mind-blower, with an intensity and harsh sexual edge that is uncommon to Bergman's films (one of his best openings to be sure). Indeed, one of the nice twists, a little shocking at first and then intriguing, is how the filmmaker lets out inhibitions and shows the more explicit images of nudity and the sensual, as well as rock and disco music.

Along with a fragmented approach to the storytelling, where infidelities, insecurities, shame, depression, and outright rage and confusion are brought out in segments that range from the convincing to missing the mark. In a way, maybe Bergman's aims are lowered this time in exile, and he delves more into a doomed personality with visual surprise. Sven Nyvkist, as usual, is still very good with what he does in the frame, especially as this is 90% black and white (with a strange blue tint at times), and his services come into great use in a visual detailing of a dream involving Peter and Katarina naked in a wide, white space. It's maybe the best sequence in the film. In experimenting with the dramatic interpretations, it's not as successful, and some of the supporting actors aren't as good as the leads (a scene with one of the actors talking into a mirror is one of my least favorite scenes Bergman's ever wrote/directed).

Its obscurity is not, therefore, that staggering to see. But it is a good and occasionally spine-tingling character study, and if you are into the filmmaker's work already it's a find that might prove better or more fulfilling. 7.5/10

Brutal, Intriguing, And Sex-Fuelled

[dommercaldi · 6/10 · 1 May 2020]

Pros: 1. The movie begins with an eye-catching opening which is simultaneously tense, suspenseful, and unflinchingly brutal. It also serves as an intriguing view into the main character. 2. The flashbacks are presented with a black-and-white colour palette, which is just a nice and simple way of delineating them from the present. 3. Both Robert Atzorn (Peter Egermann) and Christine Buchegger (Katarina Egermann) deliver fantastic performances. 4. The film serves as a fascinating insight into the mind of a psychopath who also happens to be suffering from marriage and sex issues. 5. The cinematography, especially in regards to the framing of the shots, is sharp and concise.

Cons: 1. The sound design is a little off at times. 2. The continuous sex, and sex-related content, starts to get a little repetitive. 3. The movie, at times, feels too pretentious which pulls the viewer out of the immersion.

Underrated Bergman

[zetes · 9/10 · 16 August 2002]

Bergman made this film in Germany, while in exile from Sweden for tax-related reasons. It's a dark and disturbing psychological portrait of a man, Peter, who murders a prostitute in the opening scene. The film moves back and forth in time, using title cards to establish the setting in time, trying to explain Peter's troubles. It's reminiscent of Scenes from a Marriage, as Peter has problems relating to his wife, Katarina. A few weeks before the murder, he started having fantasies and dreams about murdering her. The prologue, depicting the murder (or, more precisely, the moments before the murder) and the epilogue (Peter in prison) are filmed in color, but everything else is in black and white. The composition is generally not showy, but there is an amazingly filmed dream sequence, the film's centerpiece. The script is generally brilliant, very observant. The only thing I felt was a little underdeveloped was the homosexual character, Tim, and Peter's supposed latent homosexuality, which the psychoanalyst character describes near the end. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that material. 9/10.

Amongst Bergman's better - and most underrated - movies

[MurderSlimPress · 27 August 2010]

Many of Ingmar Bergman's movies touch on navel gazing - often featuring characters "breaking the fourth wall". We're expected to look at the character's face and glean the depth of their despair through this device. Sadly, as in 'Summer With Monica', 'Persona', 'Wild Strawberries' et al, this leads to some turgid movies.

Yet a batch of Bergman's movies are... well... movies. 'Virgin Spring' is one. Its focus is on telling a story, while subtly developing the characters. And, of course, there's 'The Seventh Seal" too. Another story led one, and great on the excesses of religion, death, hope.

'From The Life of Marionettes' is somewhere between the two styles of Bergman, but enough of the focus is on the story that I'd put this up with some of his movies that really did it for me. 'Marionettes' begins with the murder and rape of a woman... throwing you straight in at the deep-end. The scene is in Technicolor to heighten the impact. Much of the rest of the movie then switches to black and white flashbacks and flashforwards that cover the reasons behind - and the aftermath of - the murder.

The movie does come across as cold and clinical. It's so precise in its form, with lingering shots and a tendency toward tableau middle and long shots, that it is a hard movie to get excited by. But, that's probably just the point of it. Even though you feel like you're gently led by the hand through the movie, the story and characters are strong enough that you let yourself be. Well, mostly. I felt a little irritated by 10 or 20 minutes in the middle section, and I felt a couple of the scenes repeated themselves to beat us with a certain viewpoint.

But it works. 'From The Life of Marionettes' succeeds in achieving a hard thing - seeing into the mind of an insane man. And while it's not a fun watch, it's a very interesting one.

A Dark and Disturbing Psychological Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 31 July 2004]

The story begins in colors with the violent murder of a prostitute followed by necrophilism by Peter Egermann (Robert Atzorn). Through the investigation, in black & white, the investigator interviews Peter's wife, the beautiful designer Katarina Egermann (Christine Buchegger), his doctor, his mother and some friends, and realizes that Peter is an unsecured man, who has never controlled his own life. His doctor's report indicates that Peter had a breakdown. In the colored epilog, Peter is in his cell, in a mental institution, observed by his wife and his nurse. This dark and disturbing psychological movie is very depressive. I am a fan of Ingmar Bergman, the interpretations and direction are excellent, as usual, but I did not like this complex story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Da Vida das Marionetes ` (`From the Life of the Marionettes')

Underrated and under-known

[runamokprods · 9/10 · 22 May 2012]

A complex dissection of a murder and a murderer, told by jumping back and forth in time, before and after the event, A deeply disturbing portrait of a man and a society so cut off from feeling that violence seems almost inevitable.

While more divided in public reaction then some of Bergman's most beloved works, I think this edgy, bold, uncomfortable film ranks close to some of his best work. While there are moments of pretension, there's also a lot of human and psychological complexity (and wonderful acting) in this bleak exploration of how near murder and madness lie to any of us.

Static, talky, clinical, bizarre, explicit, challenging - and very well acted

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 10 November 2019]

Thematically "From The Lives Of The Marionettes" is not far away from American horror films of the period, but stylistically it is quite different. I liked the back-and-forth-in-time narrative structure, but for all the insights we get into the psyche of the central character, when the movie is over we still don't really know why he did what he did. The best part is the fetishistic dream sequence; the worst are the two consecutive endless rants of the character named Tim. **1/2 out of 4.

Aus dem Leben der Marionetten: A Cornucopia of Pleasing Visuals

[imagiking · 9/10 · 8 January 2011]

Despite having seen the best part of Höstsonaten, Bergman's film immediately prior to Aus dem Leben der Marionetten, I never completed the viewing experience. Thus, this ranks itself as my very first Bergman, something I'd been rather looking forward to for quite some time.

Beginning with a surprising scene in which a well dressed man strangles a prostitute, Aus dem Leben der Marionetten follows this event up by examining the events before and after it, hopping through a time frame of two to three months. Through the conversations which precede and follow this catastrophe—as the film's intertitles elect to label it—we learn gradually more about the reasons and the people behind it.

I have a very deep proclivity toward non-English films playing late at night on television, particularly those in German—simply because I'm a student thereof. In the fleeting moments between realising such a film directed by the acclaimed Bergman—of whom I regrettably knew rather little—was about to grace my screen and its beginning, I was somewhat disenchanted to learn that this is not considered amongst his greatest. Nevertheless, I happily sat back to watch the potential magic unfold. The opening scene of murder is a strange one, the severity of the violence neither understood by its recipient or indeed by us; verily, it is suggested that not even the assailant understands what he is doing. Thereafter, an intriguing thing happens: the colour drains from the film, turning the previous rich reds to a dull monochrome. This effect is fascinating, inviting us to ruminate upon its purpose more than beginning in black and white would have done. The film follows this up with a non-chronological narrative progression, ducking from past to future—considering the murder the present, of course. Most of these scenes take the form of intimate conversations or extended monological musings, discussing in a vague manner many aspects of life. These are beautifully shot, a scene in which a homosexual man addressing the killer's wife slowly comes to regard himself in the mirror completely entrancing and surprisingly tender. Noteworthy too are the dream sequences—most rife in the film's middle section—dazzlingly bright and beautifully narrated. These exhibit a visual flair as inherently important to an understanding of the film as any dialogue. The film is both visually and thematically interesting, examining through both the factors that drive ordinary people to brutal actions. Somewhat of a recondite piece, it is the kind of film that lingers with you, returning to your mind a number of times after viewing. The performances, particularly that of Martin Benrath—in the role of the aforementioned gentleman—are nothing short of arresting.

Containing a cornucopia of pleasing visuals and highly effective metaphors—the importance of mirrors springs to mind—Aus dem Leben der Marionetten is a voluptuous treatise on life and love; repression and expression; individuality and relationships. Slow moving, but completely involving, if this is a lesser Bergman, I can't wait to see how he could improve upon it.

A mish-mash of Bergman's previous works.

[Amyth47 · 6/10 · 7 August 2019]

My Rating : 6/10

Well - I will admit that Bergman is one of the greatest filmmakers and auteurs of all time but he has made some terrible movies in his 60+ filmography when he tries to do something a little too arts-y and highbrow-ish. This is certainly one of them.

The jumbled chronology and overly pretentious dialogues makes for a stupid film for the pretentious arthouse bourgeoisie. I liked the Freudian influences but other than that it is a re-working of his previous iconic works, Persona etc

Watch at your own risk. It is rather slow-paced.

Really intriguing and undervalued

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 3 January 2013]

Perhaps I'm biased as I am a great admirer of Ingmar Bergman, but I found myself both fascinated and impressed by From the Life of the Marionettes. Excepting All These Women, the only film(of those I've seen, which is a little over two-thirds) that I didn't care for, Bergman's films have ranged to solid to outstanding. From the Life of the Marionettes is not one his very finest, but it is one of the films of his that is close to outstanding. Apart from the I agree underdeveloped homosexual subplot, there is very little of the film to criticise. The production values could be seen as stark, but still sublime and even haunting and shot beautifully. Bergman directs superbly with his usual control and discipline, while the speeches are thoughtful and the structure consisting of drama, documentary, character study, flashback and dream sequences is constantly attention-grabbing and I didn't find myself confused by it. The characters could be seen as cold, but purposefully and there is the trademark compelling realism of Bergman's films here. There aren't Sweden's finest ever actors on board, but the acting is still very good. All in all, very undervalued Bergman with lots of interest value. 9/10 Bethany Cox

People Without Problems Make Them Up

[boblipton · 7/10 · 12 April 2022]

Given my lack of pleasure in Henry James and the Merchant-Ivory corpus (I'm tempted to write "corpse"), I found this beautifully acted and shot dissection of people with too much time on their hands a stately bore. They should take up gardening or knitting or hitting their feet with sledge hammers. There's nothing like real pain to cure ennui or disgust at being too theoretical. I think we're problem-solving animals and if we don't have a problem to solve, then we look for problems so we can solve them. Telling us "don't worry be happy" doesn't seem to work for more than a few minutes, and Bergman wants us to know how miserable we are. Especially when watching his movies. Very well, I know it.

Now what?

Monologue-Laden Misfire

[SpaaceMonkee · 5/10 · 2 March 2021]

If the entire movie were as tense, engaging, and interesting as the (approximately) first and last sixths, then this likely would have been an excellent movie. Instead, this psychological character study of why an upper-class businessman decides to murder a prostitute falls from its attention-grabbing opening to a lengthy middle act that often feels like a chore to watch, all before picking back up at the end.

From the Life of the Marionettes proceeds with a series of non-linear vignettes, each purporting to explore why Peter decided to kill a woman. Many of the episodes focus on the relationship between Peter and Katarina, which is strained and dysfunctional, with each of them alternating between affection and inflicting pain on the other. Some scenes focus specifically on Peter, including his apparent feelings of entrapment and lack of control in his work and relationship.

The movie has notable and insightful portions, but large hunks of it get bogged down by pretentious, high-brow dialogue delivered via tedious monologues more likely to make you check your watch than have a philosophical insight. It also is odd that Bergman chose to reprise these characters from their earlier appearance in Scenes from a Marriage. That was an unnecessary choice that adds plot baggage to the characters. (Personally, it's difficult to believe the couple from Scenes from a Marriage is the exact same one as this couple.)

The acting is excellent. The cinematography is interesting, though there are a number of highly experimental scenes throughout, with mixed results. The soundtrack of what seems to be German club music was grating.

Overall, it was an interesting concept that did not pan out. The low points simply outweigh the good elements.

One of Bergman's most chilling films

[philosopherjack · 19 May 2023]

From the Life of the Marionettes is one of Ingmar Bergman's most chilling films, infiltrated with a loathing and pessimism that feel all-consuming: it was made during Bergman's German exile from Sweden, a period of great acknowledged personal difficulty, in which the film feels helplessly suffused. It certainly feels like a deliberate stifling of any lightness we might detect in his work, with for example a protagonist called Egerman harking back to Smiles of a Summer Night (and with another famous actress prominent in the structure), except that the smiles here are heavy with malice and/or calculation, and the "little night music" becomes a deadening disco-inflected grind; the film's cheerless interiors generally preclude any sense of day or night or any other index of the natural world. It starts with Egerman's murder of a prostitute, then goes back in dossier-like fashion to place the event in a kind of context: we learn early on that he was plagued by fantasies of killing his wife Katarina, with the doctor in whom he confides these thoughts promptly summoning Katarina to his office, and then making sexual moves on her (which seemingly come close to succeeding); almost every subsequent scene provides a further moral or ethical or behavioral transgression or atrocity or mark of trauma. It perhaps follows that Egerman can gain a measure of control over his deadeningly repetitive, joyless life only by embracing the extremity of depravity, placing himself beyond the pale; the murder and his subsequent life in prison, removed from any knowledge of what's going on outside, are the film's only sections in colour, contrasting with the forcefully drab black and white of everything else. The film is highly artificial, its single-mindedness sometimes verging on parody; it causes you to worry for the state of mind of its maker (or would do, if not for one's knowledge that Bergman's next work was Fanny and Alexander), and for your own.

Making Murder Boring

[BNester · 6/10 · 25 December 2018]

The film opens with the murder of a prostitute by Peter, a man in a suit. What follows are scenes of Peter and his family and acquaintances that take place around the time of the "catastrophe" (as it's called in the titles), and of the Police interrogation.

The second scene shows Peter's shifty-looking psychiatrist explaining that Peter was wealthy, intelligent, normal, happily married, and gave no hint of the impending murder. We soon learn that the psychiatrist is unethical and also lying. The rest of the film shows just how much he lied. Perhaps Bergman is trying to get us to think that Peter had no choice in his actions, given the circumstances of his life; that he was, in effect, a marionette.

The film takes place in Germany, with German-speaking actors. Although filmed by Sven Nykvist, Bergman's rightly-famous cinematographer, in his usual, wonderfully-lighted close-ups, I didn't feel the intimacy that we usually get with Bergman's Swedish films. Perhaps the German actors' faces lack the expressiveness of the Swedes, or maybe Bergman simply wanted them to seem colder and more aloof.

The characters spend long minutes in monologues in single takes. It gets boring. Instead of caring about what they have to say, I found myself marveling at the actors' powers of memorization.

The film is livened up by many long nude sequences, more than you usually see in a non-pornographic film, but these are not enough to make up for its long boring bits.

"From the Life of the Marionettes" had seven (!) producers, among them Bergman himself and also Ingrid Bergman.

Excellent screenwriter-filmaker... MR. BERGMAN

[erick_castaway · 10/10 · 2 January 2002]

The best thing about this movie, is not only it's photography, nor it's characters. It's the best story telling ever, using the flash forward - flash back resource it keeps your mind trying to put together this extraordinary puzzle. Bergman did this before Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. And keeps it in an intimate level, wanders in the dark pits of human sexuality and feelings. So... watch the film with open mind.

Lots to think about and compulsive watching

[ian_harris · 8/10 · 7 May 2003]

Bergman was on top form writing this piece - there's lots to think about. What motivates a respectable man, whose mental state indicates only a small risk of self-harm, to undertake such a violent and frenzied crime? Do the ulterior motives and actions of those around him (wife, shrink, wife's business partner...)deliberately or unwittingly trigger the crime - or indeed are those sub-plots entirely incidental to the central event? These questions are not answered - they are raised and illuminated.

This is not Bergman's greatest piece of cinema - the mixture of documentary, drama and flashback can be a little disorienting - but the argument of the film drives on relentlessly and it is compulsive watching. Well worth seeing.

Surprisingly good, considering the criticism it received on release

[contact_scott · 8/10 · 13 January 2003]

A short comment - enjoyed this and it is up to the usual Bergmann standards. As with many of his other films sticking with some of the difficult opening scenes rewards the viewer later with a thought provoking account of one man's depression leading to violence and murder. In many ways Bergman is the jacques costeau of the film world, exploring the deep seas and bringing up to the surface what lies below!

One of Bergman's best

[martinpersson97 · 9/10 · 4 May 2023]

This was one of Bergman's later films done during his years as an "exile" in Germany, and he takes on a very contemporary and interesting style in this film.

The cinematography, cutting and editing, as well as the writing and metaphorical style is very much in line with Bergman's entire career.

The actors, as always in Bergman's features, are incredible, and the dialogue is both haunting and very clever.

It is without a doubt a very unique and interesting installment in Bergman's filmography that is definitely not to be missed.

Very much recommended for any lover of film and fans of Bergman's works!

A rare misfire made during Bergman's exile period

[davidmvining · 3/10 · 21 November 2019]

I was confused pretty much through this whole movie. Not because I couldn't figure out what was going on in front of me, but because I couldn't figure out how all of these disparate pieces were supposed to come together.

Made during Bergman's self-imposed exile to Germany due to tax issues in his native Sweden, From the Life of the Marionettes is a jumble of a movie that keeps swirling around a point without ever quite getting to one. I think the central problem is that the human impulse, that of a need to commit violence, doesn't seem to be something that Bergman has any real experience with. Maybe I'm wrong, and he was a violent to one (or several) of his wives, but based purely on this, I'd say no.

The story begins with the murder of a prostitute by a man. What follows is a series of chapters (like how Bergman assembled Scenes from a Marriage and Saraband) but in non-linear order, which, I don't think, ends up working particularly well. We find out about the man, a placid middle-aged and middle-class man with a wife and no children who harbors fantasies of murdering his spouse. His reasons seem to have something to do with sex with references to unexplainable urges of murder and a description of a dream where his wife humiliates him for lack of sexual ability. Maybe this could provide his motivation, but it's a surprisingly small part of the movie. There's a middle section where the wife's partner, a gay man, talks about his own troubles with attraction and aging.

The movie is an odd combination of smart and bad at the same time. Just summarizing what happens in the film papers over my resistance to the film, because it "reads" better than it actually plays. There's intelligence to how different elements come into the film, fall out, and then return, but the overall package is shockingly unwieldy and opaque. At the same time, there are wonderfully striking images throughout, in particular around the dream sequence (Bergman lost none of his ability with lensing and his long time collaborator, DP Sven Nykvist came with him to Germany to continue working with the director).

I guess the problem is that I just found the order of information revealed to be frustrating at best and the actual penetration into the murderer's actions and mindset to be unconvincing.

Misdiagnosis

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 18 March 2015]

The story begins with the murder of a prostitute by a man who can find no happiness. He sees a psychiatrist who is more interested in bedding his wife than helping him. The man is hopelessly unhappy. The movie tries to understand his emotions and motivations but it is all bottled up inside him. His relationship to his wife is pure torment. The spar with one another. She gets pleasure out embarrassing him and then tries to make up. He is attached to his mother in a very Freudian way. We are put through a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards (is there such a thing) all scripted around the murder. It's hard to feel any compassion for the figures in this drama. Bergman could be so cynical about the human condition and this film, little known, carries on that direction. I guess, Marionettes have no personal will but are pulled by the strings of their indifferent masters. This film is not for the faint of heart.

2.1.2024

[EasonVonn · 8/10 · 31 January 2024]

This is THE first time Bergman, after experimenting with the paragraph structure of THE RITE, has passed through a kind of ring-nonlinear narrative, and the content is so simple and easy to understand in such a fragmented narrative (compared to Bergman's other big boring films, such a spiritual over marriage and love genre is easier to understand).

Peter and Katharina are obviously the best confirmation of domestic abusers, from the oral testimony of psychiatrists, his early years of being controlled by his mother made him mistakenly think that "hurt is love", in order to prove that he was full of love from childhood, he had to perform domestic violence again and again, and finally when the prostitute gave him love, he faced his own never imagined real love. Suddenly his life history is overturned, everything is reconstructed, but he can not accept it and immediately kill her, and xx to make such violence into a symbol of love.

Peter is the puppet of love, he needs to maintain such a wrong structure of love, purple sand is this mistake and the operation of the system generated by the dregs are drunk and collapsed

Under such spiritual themes, the revealed marriage and love is still Bergman's flavor, the most directorial point: "I will sit on the floor" (maintain the composition.

psychiatry in action

[mjneu59 · 5/10 · 21 November 2010]

Ingmar Bergman's cold, clinical case study explores the psycho-sexual inhibitions of a Swedish man unable to trust his wife but unwilling to leave her, leading him finally to murder and then rape a young prostitute. The verbally explicit drama is challenging and controversial but also impersonal and uninvolving, in large part because of Bergman's deliberately detached viewpoint and the unfortunate addition (on the old VHS print I saw, at least) of substandard English overdubbing. The implied criticism of Freudian analysis is worth noting (if only because it's more interesting than the facts in the case itself), but the film hardly qualifies as entertainment, except perhaps for highbrow viewers needing strong food for thought.

A weak one from the master

[gbill-74877 · 4/10 · 28 May 2023]

"Certain intelligent people say we're completely blind. That we're moving in prescribed patterns and that we're predetermined from birth on...or oppressed. By the way, it makes absolutely no difference."

Certainly a valley in between the peaks of Autumn Sonata (1978) and Fanny and Alexander (1982). It's also a far cry from Scenes From a Marriage (1974), from which the characters are derived. With the premise of the murder of a prostitute, Bergman explores the unseen forces that act on us and which, given the right circumstances, could lead us to snap and commit a heinous crime. While the idea had promise, its execution was ponderous, lacking clarity of thought and ending up with the problematic conclusion that "latent homosexuality" was to blame (argh).

Along the way we get a glimpse into the killer's mind, from his fantasies over killing his wife to his suicidal thoughts. We also get plenty of banal chatter, perhaps in there to show just how humdrum life could be so shortly before a murder, as if we could look at it as both out of the blue and pre-ordained at the same time. The film began going downhill after the conversation with the mother, which was a complete waste, followed by the scene of the married couple having insomnia and getting up to have a drink, which wasn't much better. We then get the husband dictating a letter about investment costs to his secretary which goes on far too long. You get the idea.

The gay friend's dialogue has some high points, including the parallel to the main character "I'm controlled by forces I can't control", and a contemplation of aging which rang true with the "I close my eyes and feel like I'm ten years old" bit. Unfortunately Bergman perspective on being gay and his armchair psychoanalysis is weak (he has the man say "I just have a guilty conscious. I blame my homosexuality for it," which didn't ring true).

The characters were unlikeable which could have been overcome had the script been profound, but here when Bergman tried to liven things up, we got dream sequences, humiliating sexual anecdotes, and lurid nudity. I kept hoping for a breakthrough, and it never came. I was already actively disliking the film despite my reverence for Bergman, and then the "latent homosexuality" horse bleep came along and took my review score down further. Watch Scenes From a Marriage instead.