Face to Face (1976)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The first time I saw "Face to Face," in the mid-1990's, it made a powerful impression on me. Of the ten or so Bergman films I've seen, this was the one that moved me the most, particularly because of Liv Ullmann's powerful, emotionally naked performance. So, when I learned that the AFI Silver Theatre was showing this film in honor of Bergman's 100th Birthday, I was eager to see it once more. I sent out the word to my movie-going friends, and got absolutely no takers. Apparently, not many people want to watch a film about a psychiatrist's descent into madness. So, I took myself off to the AFI yesterday, and watched the theatrical version of "Face to Face" once more.Although the film did not have the spiritual impact on me this time, I still found it to be a fascinating, and oddly, very hopeful film. It's no accident, I think, that Bergman followed up his previous film about madness, "Through a Glass Darkly," which had no hope, with a film that also takes its title from the same passage in Corinthians, perhaps the most beautiful passage in the Bible. I wondered about the title, and I believe that the most important relationship in this film was between Ullman's character, and the near stranger played by Erland Josephson.Although he is almost a stranger, he quite literally saves her life, both by finding her after her suicide attempt, and by being with her in her spiritual crisis. The "unbeliever's prayer" he offers her at the end it seems to be a call to put human relationships at the center of her life. Yet, in a way, I feel the closest relationship she will ever have in her life is with a man she will probably never see again, who is literally her savior. In the absence of God, only our relationships with other humans can save us. That's what I believe Bergman is trying to say in the film.

A tremendous performance by Liv Ullman as a psychiatrist who is herself slowly going mad, haunted by dreams or visions of her past, pushing her towards suicide. Some of the dream imagery is truly striking and nightmarish – once again Bergman comes close to making a horror film. But at times these visions and their symbols are a bit on the nose, and at times they get repetitive. None the less, I look foreword to seeing this again. I only wish the full 200 minute version (made as 4 50 minute parts for Swedish TV) were available. I have a feeling that might make for a richer experience

The first time I saw this, I thought the dream sequences were disappointing. The second time, I found them interesting. This time, I felt they were a mix of the two. Some work and some are too histrionic. And that describes the movie in general. I can't keep making excuses for it, it's just not very good. There are amazing moments (the rape scene, Jenny's talk with her daughter) but then are moments that are embarrassingly hacky. It's a rather vague and cheap depiction of madness, surprising because we know Bergman can do it well (see: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY). That final breakdown is cringeworthy. I don't blame Liv Ullmann. Bergman himself felt the movie was a failure, too ambitious. Despite some masterful elements (including a lot of Ullmann's performance) it's one of his weaker films overall. I will probably never get to see the complete version, which is too bad because I bet it comes together more cohesively, achieves a greater balance.

As every one of Ingmar Bergman's films, "Face to Face" (1976) deals with Life, Love and Death. The Bergman's alter ego in the film is "a well-adjusted, capable and disciplined person, a highly qualified professional woman with a career, comfortably married to a gifted colleague and surrounded by what is called "the good things of life." It is this admirable character's shockingly quick breakdown and agonizing rebirth that I have tried to describe. I have also, on the basis of the material at my disposal, shown the causes of the disaster as well as the possibilities available to this woman in the future." (Ingmar Bergman) This seemingly successful woman who would attempt a suicide is played by Liv Ullmann and whatever has been said about her in this film as a psychiatrist who faces and struggles with her own nervous breakdown, still can not describe how she did it. For almost two hours, she is in every scene of the film, "lonely, ashamed", and facing unbearable nightmares of her past, struggling for her sanity. She gave, perhaps, the most powerful and unforgettable performance by any actress on the screen. She literally transforms herself in several different persons - her voice, facial expressions, the manner of speech, emotions - change with such a rapid speed and so effortlessly in front of you - it would take your breath away.I've never been as moved and fascinated by any performance on the screen as by Liv's in the film and I think the second time even more than the first one. Sure, it was a Bergman's film, his ideas, his anxieties; his "toothache" in the heart but it was Liv who lived through them and showed them with such powerful depth, honesty and selflessness that the film will always belong to her. This is one performance never to forget.Both Bergman and Ullmann were nominated for an Oscar (directing and acting) but for unknown and strange reasons, the movie is not available on DVD or even on tape."yes" – to the movie and YES! to Liv Ullmann