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.
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.