Bergman, Ullmann provide masterful acting —
economical editing leaves doubt about denouement
By Kristi Turnquist
Placid water rippled by undercurrents;
cut to Liv Ullmann's face, composed yet
anxious.
Ingmar Bergman's newest film, Face
to Face, now playing at the Waco
"inema I, opens up this close-up of Ull
mann. It's fitting. Bergman provides
solid backgrounds for her, but the drama
takes place largely in the theater of
Ullmann's face and body.
In a masterly performance, she
guides us through a woman's break
down, inspired by Bergman's customary
genius with actors and his newer, spare
technique.
Only later, when released from
Ullmann’s spell, do certain facets of
Face to Face become troubling.
Ullmann plays Dr. Jenny Isaksson:
moderate, intelligent and always dres
sed in beige. By most standards, she is a
fulfilled woman; she is committed to her
psychiatric work (no pun intended), has
a loose, convenient marriage, and a
self-sufficient 14-year old daughter.
We meet her preparing to move into a
new house while her family is away. She
moves in temporarily with her grandpar
ents, in the house where she was raised.
Bergman’s at his best here, handling
the mundane homecoming with deli
cacy. He illuminates not only Jenny's
past and present states, but those of her
grandparents as well
Surrounded by childhood posses
sions, Jenny’s repression is sketched
with deft strokes.
In one instance Grandma makes a
fuss over Jenny's old things, and her
girlhood insistence on a hard pillow.
Rather than say, "I don’t care for these
anymore and like a softer pillow now,"
Jenny only smiles. Unseen by Grandma,
she grimaces at the room and discards
the rock-hard pillow.
At the clinic, Jenny’s scheduled to fill
in for a vacationing colleague. In what at
first appears to be a 10-ton weight
labeled Theme, the other doctor tells her
psychiatry is a sham; if patients recover
at all, it’s by accident. Jenny politely dis
agrees.
At a party given by the doctor’s ex-wife
(to "unveil her new lover”—a homosex
ual), Jenny shares a quiet moment with
her. Humbling confessing gratitude at
ending the conflict between herself and
her emotions, the garrulous lady briefly
betrays middle-aged desperation.
Disturbed, Jenny accepts a dinner in
vitation from another guest, a
gynecologist named Jacobi (solidly
played by Erland Josephson). Despite
initial suspicion, the two become friends,
not lovers.
Jenny’s turning-point comes in her
empty new house. She is surprised by
two men who bring her missing patient
there and one attempts to rape her.
She later tells Jacobi of the attack and
her involuntary wish it had succeeded.
Half-asleep, her defenses fall and she
collapses into choking hysterical laugh
ter (bravura acting by Ullmann here).
Slipping into delusions (her recurring
vision is of an old woman, blind in one
eye), Jenny calmly yet promptly decides
to kill herself. She swallows sleeping
pills (shown, for once, as the laborious
process it must be).
Dr. Jacobi’s concern saves her how
ever, and she awakens from fevered
dreams in the hospital.
Bergman shows us little treatment, as
if underscoring earlier statements about
psychiatry’s ineffectuality. Jenny recov
ers under therapy consisting mainly of
talking to Jacobi (not a psychiatrist, re
member) and re-living childhood
sources of anxiety.
The question arises: What makes a
mind break, and what makes it mend?
Bergman apparently sees it, in Jenny’s
case at any rate (her patients are worse
off), as illness running its course.
In the delicate recovery period, Jenny
withstands her daughter’s rejection, her
husband's coolness, and Jacobi's sud
den departure for Jamaica. Where does
her strength come from? Perhaps these
are harsh confirmations of what she's
known all along, and reassuring in their
blatancy. But it’s impossible to know.
Bergman ends the film abruptly.
Jenny, re-installed at her grandparents’,
realizes the old people’s love “embraces
all — even death.” She calls the clinic
and reports she’ll be in next morning, “as
usual. ”
We can’t help but reject the patness of
this conclusion. These are the same old
folks Jenny blamed for many traumas.
With all she’s gone through (shown too
dearly in dream sequences which seem
remnants of Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf
period), surely she must have learned
no easy answers exist. “Love Conquers
AH” hardly applies to her own emotion
ally arid life.
Bergman is externally following a
course common to artists’ development:
Economy of Means. He’s stripped his
work of expressionist baggage and re
lies on essentials, carefully controlled.
Despite Bergman's purely filmic skill,
however, Face to Face requires a sec
ond viewing to allow recognition of its
depths; and this is a failing. Serious
problems exist in the content — is the
theme really simple as Psychiatry is bad
and love is good? Senses tell us no, but
are unable to find other concrete ideas to
flush out these.
Is it gluttonous to ask an artist who
supplies so much to give just a little bit
more?