“Jesus wanted me to have that truck,” ex-convict Jack insists early on in 21 Grams, blissfully unaware that he will soon be behind the wheel when it kills two young girls and their father, Michael. His prosperity has come as a direct result of his conversion, he believes, preordained by a loving, omniscient God. From our perspective too, there was no other way this sequence of events could have unfolded. Jack’s fate is woven into the very structure of Alejandro Iñárritu’s splintered narrative, as are the destinies of former drug addict Cristina and maths professor Paul, pulling these strangers to the centre of a whirlpool that drowns them in guilt, grief, and a pressing sense of their own mortality.
The result is purposefully disorientating, throwing us not only between three colliding stories, but also across their respective timelines. Right as Cristina receives the devastating news that her family has been hit by a truck, we also see a shaken Jack arriving late to his birthday party, confessing to his wife Marianne what he has done. Suddenly, we jump several months forward to Jack driving Cristina and a mortally wounded Paul to the hospital – only to then leap back to Paul being given Michael’s heart, wondering whose death saved him from a life-threatening illness. On a broad level, this narrative indeed progresses from start to finish, yet its asynchronous flow is as jarringly fractured as the lives of its tormented characters.
The religious faith which once uplifted Jack becomes a burden as he wrestles with a guilty conscience.Splintering characters through the visuals as well as the narrative, reducing them to broken pieces of themselves.
Even more than the examination of humanity’s interconnectedness from Iñárritu’s previous film Amores Perros, 21 Grams binds these strangers together in close physical proximity. No one here truly lives in isolation, so each time we cut to a disconnected scene without the context of what immediately preceded it, we find ourselves trying to fill in the gaps. Showing Cristina smelling her children’s clothes, ambiguously proclaim “We have to kill him” in her next scene, and then bake a cake with her daughters a few minutes later not only whips us between her the emotional extremes of character arc. In moments of happiness, this formal fragmentation instils sorrow, and we equally recall memories of innocent joy as we behold unconscionable devastation.
Scenes of a jaded, vengeful Cristina contrast heavily against scenes of domestic bliss – her evolution is raw and jarring as both ends of this arc are placed next to each other.
From the disordered information provided to us, we gradually infer what has happened and what is yet to unfold. Like these characters though, still we long for the catharsis of deeper understanding. Jack may be burdened by a guilty conscience after all, but there is no doubt in his mind that this tragedy was anything but an accident. If God gave him that truck, then doesn’t it stand to reason that he was chosen to carry out this manslaughter? If so, then how can he possibly love a God who doesn’t simply allow suffering, but decides who should live with the responsibility of inflicting it?
Where Jack’s belief in a fatalistic cosmos is furiously directed towards an all-powerful deity, Iñárritu lays out a formal contrast through Paul’s scientific determinism, heavily informed by his background as a maths teacher. “There’s a number hidden in every act of life, in every aspect of the universe,” he passionately expounds to Cristina, trying to express his own growing fondness for her. Everything that will ever happen is already written into the code of the universe, he maintains, invisible to the eye of its unassuming inhabitants.
“Numbers are a door to understanding a mystery that’s bigger than us. How two people, strangers, come to meet.”
Strangers connected and broken apart by tragedy, written into the very code of the universe.
Indeed, what looks at first glance to be sheer randomness in these lives is rather governed by many intersecting causal relationships. Whether one finds joy or tragedy in this complex web of probabilities is purely a matter of subjective experience, yet from the macro perspective Iñárritu grants us in 21 Grams, we also find a spiritual communion of their souls. Although they find themselves on divergent sides of this accident as a perpetrator, a survivor, and a benefactor, all three understand each other better than they realise.
It is largely through the three leading performances that we see these parallels emerge as well, balancing out the film’s expansive scope with raw, interior insight. Benicio del Toro’s tired resignation to suicidal depression, Sean Penn’s melancholy reckoning with the inevitability of death, and Naomi Watts’ grief-stricken regression into unhealthy behaviours are delivered with mesmerising naturalism, exposing all three at their most psychologically vulnerable.
A weary resignation to suicidal depression in Benicio del Toro’s performance, seeing guilt cannibalise a man from the inside out.Mortality weighs heavy on Sean Penn’s soul, accepting the inevitability of death.A prime achievement of acting from Naomi Watts, shattered by an unfathomable grief which violently twists her soul.
For Watts in particular, the fateful disaster which destroyed her entire family haunts her like a recurring nightmare. The first time it unfolds, we are with her at home, unaware that the voicemail she receives will be the last words she hears them speak. The second time, we are with them on the street, hanging on the excruciating seconds immediately preceding the accident. Finally, we visit the site with Cristina herself, replaying the brief audio message as the camera circles her in shaky, handheld motions. Even according to her own experience, this tragedy cannot be confined to a single point-of-view. As we witness in such pointed formal repetition, it instead warps and echoes into distortions of itself, existing somewhere between an objective historical event and intense, undistilled emotion.
Echoes of tragedy, the first time playing as a voicemail when Cristina arrives home…The second time as a flashback…And the third time as a memory, following her as she walks down the street where her family died.
By physically tampering with the film stock as well, Iñárritu alters the crude, gritty texture of his visuals according to each characters’ psychological state, heightening the varying impact of their trauma. This largely comes through the bleach bypass effect, deliberately skipping steps of film processing to increase contrast and decrease saturation, while using a colour cast to wash a faded green tint over its harshest scenes in the prison and hospital. Along with Rodrigo Prieto’s jittery camerawork and Gustavo Santaolalla’s sombre, reverberating score, these stylistic treatments consume us wholly in Jack, Paul, and Cristina’s collective vulnerability, lulling us into a hypnotic submission to fate’s unpredictable hand.
Iñárritu underscores the grittiness of his mise-en-scène by tampering with his film stock, accentuating the coarseness of the film grain.Green colour grading and lighting woven through 21 Grams, tinting the imagery with sickly hues.
There is a thin line between resignation and acceptance though, and much of it lies in the context one places their own life, regardless of the path that has been travelled. Every so often, Iñárritu grants us reprieve from his arduous narrative by way of cutaways, deeply infused with metaphysical wonder as birds take flight at sunset and leaves blow in the breeze. This complex world evidently sprawls further out than these three interconnected characters, and as their stories finally converge upon a montage of memories and pensive deliberations, there is even a touch of Terrence Malick in its meditative flow.
Visual poetry in the flying birds and leaves, revealed in cutaways as we pensively reflect on the fleeting places these characters occupy in an enormous world.
“How many lives do we live? How many times do we die?” Paul reflects as he faces the end of his life for the third time in the film.
“They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? How much goes with them? How much is gained?”
True to the maths professor’s instincts, an exact number is placed upon the weight of a human life, yet still his thirst for knowledge remains unsatiated. As far as Jack, Paul, and Cristina are concerned, its impact is immeasurable, echoing across a vast network of seemingly trivial yet unfathomably intricate relationships. At least through the fractured storytelling of 21 Grams, Iñárritu gifts us a miraculous glimpse into this infinite expanse, and the terrible, intimate burden it imposes on our souls.
21 Grams is currently streaming on Binge, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
With The Lord of the Rings dominating so much of 21st century pop culture, it is easy to take for granted just how subversive J.R.R. Tolkien’s story was in the 1950s, even as he borrowed pieces of Greek, Nordic, and Germanic mythology. Our central hero is not some predestined Chosen One like Achilles, a legendary wizard such as Merlin, and does not possess the extraordinary physical strength of Beowulf, though these ancient archetypes certainly populate the narrative’s sidelines. Should any of these alternate characters attempt to fulfil the main quest at hand, they would be guaranteed almost certain failure. Humility and loyalty are far more important qualities here, neither of which are so easily corrupted by the One Ring that reaches into the minds of those with altruistic ambitions and twists them into selfish megalomaniacs.
As a result, Frodo Baggins the hobbit stands among the few figures uniquely capable of carrying and destroying this cursed artefact, and is consequently driven to separate himself from his Fellowship of powerful companions who may fall to its temptation. The Lord of the Rings stretches across an enormous span of land and time, yet by framing this ordinary creature who has never stepped far outside his home as our primary protagonist, Tolkien offers a fresh perspective that Peter Jackson gladly capitalises on in his cinematic adaptation.
The Lord of the Rings is one of the key texts that cannot be missed when talking about world building in either literature or cinema, and specifically in the film adaptations Jackson imbues his imagery with fantastical awe.
Through Frodo’s inexperienced eyes, we appreciate Middle Earth as one of the richest fictional worlds of literary history, complete with fully developed languages, genealogies, and cultures. While this film trilogy only touches on a small portion of Tolkien’s original creation, there is a wonder here that emerges from Jackson’s rendering of its extraordinary, almost imperceptible details. With enormous respect to the astonishing work of literature that had been placed in his hands, Jackson went about faithfully translating the written descriptions of great civilisations, creatures, and weapons to a visual medium, imbuing the design of each with a level of cultural and historical detail that takes multiple viewings to properly comprehend. Jackson realises that we do not need close-ups on the runes of Orc armour nor the embroidered textures of an Elven mourning dress to note their significance. Simply by including them in the frame, he viscerally conveys the sprawling authenticity of his intricately constructed world with minimal exposition, while occasionally compromising on the compositional beauty they may have offered with more precise framing.
Peter Jackson proves his mastery of long shots in The Lord of the Rings, crafting a vast world of astonishing beauty with the use of miniature models, matte paintings, and digital effects.
A huge portion of this fantastical visual style of course comes down to his fine synthesis of digital and practical effects too, more frequently relying on the latter with his matte paintings and miniature city models built into the side of imposing mountain ranges. Along with deserved comparisons to D.W. Griffith’s historical standard of epic filmmaking, Jackson makes a name for himself next to Georges Méliès with his in-camera illusions, shrinking hobbits and dwarves next to taller creatures with forced perspective angles. Meanwhile, CGI is judiciously used to elevate these practical effects rather than replace them, allowing an expressive motion-captured performance from Andy Serkis as Gollum that may have otherwise been limited beneath layers of prosthetics. As evidenced a decade later with The Hobbit trilogy, technological innovation does not equal art, but much like James Cameron and Christopher Nolan at their peaks, Jackson is primarily using it here as a tool for his grand storytelling and world-building.
Jackson uses forced perspective where he can to shoot actors in the same scene together when their characters have different heights – Elijah Wood is actually seated several feet behind Ian McKellen here.Another use of forced perspective to emphasise the ring in the foreground, using a specific version of the prop that was the size of a dinner plate.Some of the greatest motion-capture of modern cinema can be found in Andy Serkis’ performance as Gollum, tracing each facial expression that might have otherwise been lost beneath layers of prosthetics.
Even with all that stripped away though, there is no doubt to be had regarding the raw power of Tolkien’s narrative. In this epic battle between good and evil, there is a very simple objective uniting the Free Peoples of Middle Earth against Sauron, though it is often the smaller battles and personal motives which give a complex weight to this twelve-hour saga. The ensemble is huge, but the nuances of every relationship are worth savouring, from Aragorn’s love for the immortal Arwen, to Gandalf’s grandfatherly affection towards the hobbits. Even on repeat viewings, it still lands as a shock that his death takes place so early, foreshadowing the inevitable breaking of the Fellowship that splits the story into further subplots and develops individual characters through their isolation.
Jackson’s battle scenes are some of the greatest of cinema history for their clarity, editing, and geography, positioning The Lord of the Rings’ epic set pieces right next to D.W. Griffith’s.
Where Tolkien’s novels segmented each of these plotlines into individual parts, Jackson propels his narrative forward with brisk parallel editing, drawing heavily on the foundational rules of film language that D.W. Griffith developed in its earliest days. Much like the father of modern cinema, Jackson is both an artist and technician of staggeringly large set pieces, skilfully establishing the geography of fortresses and battlefields in sweeping long shots before cutting between the smaller conflicts within them. The orcs’ assault of Helm’s Deep with siege ladders and catapults is especially reminiscent of the fall of Babylon in Intolerance, while through the chaos Jackson continues tracing the movements of each key player, alleviating the tension with some friendly competition between Legolas and Gimli.
The helicopter shots are another brilliant variation on Jackson’s long shots, circling characters as they traverse New Zealand’s grand mountains and valleys.
Beyond the action as well, Jackson goes on to prove his mastery of epic visuals in the helicopter shots flying over New Zealand’s sprawling mountain ranges, while those static compositions overlooking lush panoramas and ancient cities often look like paintings in their spectacular beauty. Much like Griffith, there is also immense power in his expressive close-ups, framing Arwen like a stone statue beneath her mourning veil and teetering Frodo on the brink of obsessive madness at the Cracks of Doom.
Conversely, Jackson’s framing of faces in close-ups also bring an intimacy to this sprawling epic – a superb staggering of Aragorn and Legolas’ profiles here.An ethereal framing of Arwen beneath her mourning veil, posed like a stone statue.
This balance between the epic and the intimate is the foundation of not only The Lord of the Rings’ tremendous narrative, but also its core belief in the mighty influence of the tiniest creatures. This extends past our four central hobbits, as Gandalf wisely notes that Gollum may play a crucial part in determining the fate of Middle Earth too. This is true on two levels – not only is he incidentally responsible for the destruction of the One Ring at Mount Doom, but to Frodo he also serves as a reminder of the disaster in store should he similarly fall to its temptation. The two opposed voices that split Gollum right down the middle manifest as entirely different beings in Jackson’s editing, alternating the camera position between his left and right sides while they argue, and thereby revealing the quiet, fragile innocence that persists in the mind of this corrupted being. Though Frodo recognises how easily his sympathy for Gollum might be manipulated, he still hangs onto it as a tiny shred of hope for his own redemption.
“I have to believe he can come back.”
Gollum is a vision of Frodo’s future should he fail his mission, and Jackson composes our first glimpse of him beneath this beam of light with eerie beauty.
While Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are continuing their uphill struggle, Tolkien’s ‘David and Goliath’ metaphor also sees Merry ride into the Battle for Middle Earth and deliver a crippling blow to the Witch King, Pip save Faramir from certain death, and both spur the peaceful race of Ents to action through their words alone. Because of them, the forests of Middle Earth rise against the armies of the white wizard Saruman, recalling the primordial imagery of the Battle of Dunsinane from Macbeth. Not content that nature’s vengeance in Shakespeare’s play was merely an illusion though, Tolkien manifests it on a literal level in The Lord of the Rings, pitting the tree-like Ents against the Uruk-hai orcs that Jackson associates with modern forces of technology, industry, and the careless obliteration of life.
Nature itself joins the Free People of Middle Earth and rises up against evil, recalling the primordial imagery of Macbeth’s Battle of Dunsinane.
It takes more than just the fury of the natural world to save Middle Earth from Sauron’s terrible reign though, but also a righteous spiritual grace. Between our heroes of Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo, Tolkien essentially splits his Messiah into a trinity, each taking on key characteristics of Christ. After being constantly underestimated as a friend to the meek and lowly, Gandalf is resurrected with new powers, saving Theodon from his brainwashed servitude and vanquishing foes with a dazzling white light. By setting the souls of the suffering free, Aragorn saves Middle Earth from devastation and reigns as its new King, bringing in an age of peace and prosperity. Finally, left to carry the sins of the world around his neck, Frodo offers up the greatest sacrifice of them all, and heads towards what he can only assume will be certain death.
A trinity of Christ figures lead the ensemble of The Lord of the Rings, beginning with Gandalf facing off against a demonic beast, and then followed by his great sacrifice and divine resurrection.Aragorn is the prophesied King, destined to save the souls of the dead and usher in a new era of prosperity.Our final Christ figure is Frodo, bearing the sins of the world around his neck and prepared to give up everything he holds dear.
There is no doubt that Jackson recognises the biblical connotations of the flood washing away Saruman’s forces at Isengard too, or the original sin committed by Isildur that led to the fall of man, though he never underscores this theological symbolism so blatantly. These narrative archetypes largely speak for themselves, emerging organically in Jackson’s storytelling that finds new visual expressions for Tolkien’s mythology, and which continues to build on its classical influences through Howard Shore’s operatic film score. Just as Tolkien drew significant inspiration from the 19th century cycle of epic music dramas Der Ring des Nibelungen, so too does Shore borrow many of Richard Wagner’s classical instrumentations and techniques from that work, developing a rich assortment of leitmotifs that evolve with the narrative.
Saruman poses a mighty threat as he rallies the forces of industry and technology at Isengard, marked as the enemy of the modern world by Tolkien.
The very first of these we hear in the prologue is the Ring theme, played by a thin, double-reeded rhaita that slyly rises and falls along a harmonic minor scale, while Cate Blanchett’s deep, resonant voiceover informs us of its dark history. Because of this uneasy opening, we welcome the shift to the warm, sunny Shire with delight, and embrace the new motif led by a folksy tin whistle that, from this point on, will always remind us of home. Later when Frodo reunites with his uncle Bilbo at Rivendell, it matures with the elegant timbre of a clarinet, before breaking into destitute fragments when a partially corrupted Frodo pushes Sam away late in their quest. When the four hobbits do finally return to the Shire at the end of this colossal journey, the melody is mostly restored in its original form, and yet the flute which now takes over marks a melancholy evolution that keeps these four hobbits from recovering their lost innocence.
Picturesque visuals in the Shire pair sweetly with Howard Shore’s folksy tin whistle motif, which from this point will always remind us of home.
Shore’s music continues to reach even deeper into Middle Earth’s mythology as well, using Tolkien’s constructed languages in choral arrangements as the Fellowship descends into the dwarven Mines of Moria, and as they enter the elven woodland realm of Lothlórien. So too does it serve a crucial role in connecting these characters to their respective cultures and legends, transposing poems from the books into diegetic songs sung by characters in moments of celebration and reflection, most notably in Pippin’s lyrical lament ‘The Edge of Night’. As his soft voices echoes through the cavernous halls of Gondor, Jackson reverberates it across a devastating montage of Faramir and his men riding towards their massacre, intercut with his cowardly father vulgarly ripping into a meal that drips blood-red juices down his chin.
“Home is behind,
The world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread,
Through shadow,
To the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight,
Mist and shadow,
Cloud and shade,
All shall fade,
All shall fade.”
Jackson’s intercutting between Pippin’s rendition of ‘The Edge of Night’ and Faramir’s brutal defeat at Osgiliath makes for one of the finest pieces of editing in the entire saga, revealing the massacre and tragedy which comes at the hands of cruel leaders like Denethor.
Even on a structural level, Shore integrates the mystical numerology of Middle Earth into his rhythms and notations, particularly using the number 9. There were nine rings created for Men, and nine heroes tasked with carrying the One Ring to Mordor, and so the musical leitmotif used in the themes for both the One Ring and the Fellowship are similarly composed of nine distinct notes. Somewhat poetically, that number also binds together the fates of Sauron and Frodo, with both eventually losing the Ring by having a finger severed and leaving them with only nine.
Nine rings for nine men – this number is sacred in The Lord of the Rings, and so Shore even works it into the music of his prologue and Fellowship theme.
It is in this repetition of history that The Lord of the Rings unfolds its second great subversion of the archetypal quest narrative – even after an immense journey across Middle Earth that has seen many give up their lives, our hero fails his mission. As Frodo turns to Sam atop the Cracks of Doom and chillingly claims the Ring as his own, he strikes a mirror image of Isildur doing the exact same many millennia before, finally falling to its corruptive influence. It would appear that no living entity can destroy Sauron, no matter how large or small they may be. There is only one force powerful enough to defeat an evil this powerful, and that is the evil itself, incidentally turning two of its own corrupted beings against each other in a jealous struggle and thereby sending the Ring plummeting into the lava from which it was forged. Should those who fight for all that is right fail in their mission, Tolkien is resoundingly optimistic that wickedness will collapse under its own unsustainable power.
A mirror image of failure at two separate ages, with both Isildur and Frodo falling to the Ring’s temptation at the crucial moment upon the Cracks of Doom.Gollum encased within the boundaries of the Ring in this superb frame, both their fates entwined in self-destruction.
Like his fellow hobbits, Gollum’s purpose has been found, though there is no path to redemption for him as there is for Frodo. Jackson’s ending to the final film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy has often been accused of long-windedness, though such an expansive story necessitates a conclusion with weight and patience behind it. Even with Sauron defeated, Frodo’s arc is not yet complete, and continues to draw him towards a peaceful resolution in the Undying Lands with Gandalf, Bilbo, and the Elves. How fitting that Tolkien imagined the future of Middle Earth as our present reality where magic has died out and Men have lived on, because at the end of all things, Jackson’s fantasy epic stands as a monumental tribute to their greatest qualities of ambition, endurance, and pure, ingenious creativity.
The Lord of the Rings is currently streaming on Netflix, Prime Video, Binge, and Paramount Plus, can be rented or bought on Apple TV, Amazon Video, or Google Play, and the Blu-ray or DVD can be bought on Amazon.
Though often described as a sequel to Scenes from a Marriage, Saraband is not so much an interrogation of that famous relationship which saw divorce rates rise across Sweden as it is an observation of the imprint it has left on those younger generations left to carry its legacy. There are a couple of fresh faces present here in Börje Ahlstedt and Julia Dufvenius, while for Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson this film marks the end of an era. Not only is it their final collaboration with Ingmar Bergman, but for the celebrated Swedish director it is also his last work before he passed away in 2007, and a notable return to form after many years of creating less-than-admirable television movies.
Saraband may not be the first time he has contemplated regrets of old age, though compared to the pensive meditations of Wild Strawberries and Autumn Sonata, this screenplay is far more grounded in Bergman’s firsthand experience of the matter. Save for a few minor dreams and flashbacks, these narrative diversions are excised altogether, and instead this story of reunited ex-lovers is delivered through a series of ten chapters not unlike the six parts of Scenes from a Marriage.
Liv Ullmann breaks the fourth wall in the prologue and epilogue, pouring over a table of photographs capturing pieces of Marianne’s life.
The result is a film that takes the form of a written memoir, framing an aged Marianne as our first-person narrator who pours over photographs of her life, and whose direct addresses to the camera bookend the narrative in a prologue and epilogue. Her absence from so many chapters is not an oversight on Bergman’s part. Each scene in this chamber drama is purposefully written as a two-hander, crafting rich dynamics from all the possible pairings between our four central characters – Marianne, Johan, his estranged son Henrik, and his freedom-seeking granddaughter Karin. Among them, Marianne appears to be the only one who is most content with herself, having put her psychological demons evident in Scenes from a Marriage to rest many years ago. She does not seek to become an active part of Johan’s family drama, but instead she carries a largely observational and counselling presence, offering warm wisdom to those willing to listen.
Warm burgundy colours in the costume and production design when Marianne and Johan reunite after many years. Saraband’s main drama is not about them – they are at peace with their divorce.Contrary to what one might have assumed from Bergman’s last few projects, he has not lost his touch with these intimate close-ups. Neither has he apparently lost his penchant for disturbing relationship dynamics with Henrik’s sexual abuse of his daughter.
For an elderly Johan staring down the end of his life, Marianne’s impromptu visit couldn’t be timelier in helping him make peace with his own psychological troubles. It is somewhat surprising how little animosity there is between them, especially given how firmly he holds onto old grudges against Henrik which consequently left a broken family in their wake. In the absence of his alienated father and deceased wife Anna, Henrik has made the unsettling decision to attempt filling every role in his daughter’s life, thus not only positioning himself as her cello tutor, but also, quite disturbingly, as her lover.
It’s not quite The Seventh Seal or Winter Light, but there is an austere beauty to Bergman’s wide shots and tangential contemplations of religion.
The messiness of human entanglements has long been at the centre of Bergman’s writing, and sixty years after his early melodramas in the 1940s he is quite astonishingly still finding new angles on the jealousy and insecurity that hides within our most intimate relationships. Much like Johan and Marianne’s arguments in Scenes from a Marriage, Henrik’s seething expressions of acrid resentment reveal far more about his own spiteful soul than the target of his derision, taking perverted pleasure in the suffering he mentally projects on his father.
“I hate him in all possible dimensions of the word. I hate him so much, I would like to see him die from a horrible illness. I’d visit him every day, just to witness his torment.”
Ironically enough, it isn’t too hard to imagine Karin a few years down the track holding similar feelings towards the man who speaks these words. Bergman struggles to develop a strong visual aesthetic in Saraband, though the strained relationship between Henrik and Karin becomes abundantly clear in his trademark composition of their parallel faces lying horizontal in bed, as he desperately begs her to audition for a nearby music conservatory so she can stay close by his side.
That horizontal blocking of parallel faces appearing for the last time in Bergman’s filmography, and this time he hangs on the shot as the camera drifts between close-ups of both.
It isn’t until after speaking with Johan and Marianne individually that Karin finds the courage to set out on a new path, following her friend to Hamburg to perform in an orchestra, and thereby rebelling against her father’s isolative preference for her to pursue a career as a solo cellist. There is a beautiful synchronicity between this arc and the accompanying music too, ringing out the lonely lament of a single cello throughout much of the film, before growing into a full orchestral symphony as Karin envisions a future of her own choosing. Bergman is not a director who typically makes extensive use of film scores, though certainly his love of classical music has persisted through his work ever since 1950’s To Joy, elegantly expressing his characters’ deepest yearnings.
One of the very few breaks from reality in Saraband, escaping into this white void in Karin’s mind as she plays the cello, the whole world opening up to her.
Perhaps the most profound of all these longings though is for a figure who is almost completely absent in Saraband, represented only in the framed photographs that adorn Johan, Henrik, Karin, and even Marianne’s personal spaces. The grace that Anna brought to their lives is sorely missed, and it is only thanks to her that Karin ever really knew what it meant to feel the kind, unselfish love of a parent. Through Anna, Henrik was made fully aware of his failings as a father, and perhaps he might have even been able to fix them had she not passed away. As it is though, all she was able to leave him was a letter written shortly before her death, professing her love yet warning him against further wounding his relationship with Karin.
Anna is the fifth primary character, and yet is physically absent from Saraband having passed away long ago. She continues to leave a mark on those left behind though, each of them keeping a framed black-and-white photo close in their homes.
Unlike virtually everyone else in this ensemble though, Henrik cannot simply let go of those who are ready to move on without him. His failed suicide attempt after Karin’s departure for Berlin is the bleak conclusion to his story, though Bergman decides to sit a little longer with those two characters whose richness and authenticity secured his place in popular culture thirty years prior. As an anxious Johan finds comfort in Marianne’s arms after a night of restless sleep, the two bear their naked bodies to each other for the first time in decades, finding an intimate, humbling honesty that cuts through the existential terror of old age. In the last moments of Bergman’s last film, there are no vicious verbal attacks or extreme acts of spiritual desecration to be found. Much like Marianne, Bergman too finds peace in the act of introspective reminiscence, allowing him to finally appreciate the pure bond between lovers, parents, and children that transcends all other worldly distractions.
A raw, naked union of bodies under the sheets, these ex-lovers finding comfort in each other’s arms and accepting old age together.
