I can now see why the sociologist who supposedly made the fictionalized statement that "after the release of the film, the divorce rate in Sweden went up", that is, that marriage is not so closed after three hours of agonizing torture (I can't imagine how traumatizing the five-hour trial version of the play would have been for me) in Bergman's terribly masculine and disgustingly enclosed space for two people (even though he tries to make it less closed by filming street scenes he never filmed himself). (I shudder to think how traumatized I would have been by the five-hour trial in the theatrical version.) One can't help but be impressed by the fact that the marriage is so long and stinky like an old woman's foot-wrapping (or rather a young woman's foot-wrapping, after all, Bergman's close-ups and audio-visuals don't stink so much), and it's so stinky and long that I can't begin to imagine how much of a grasp of the narrative has been taken away from him by starting to see such a movie again, following the two Farrow documentaries. Bergman's grasp of the narrative is that of a young girl whose virginity has been taken away and who has fallen into self-indulgent abandonment. Coupled with Bergman's own sexuality, the scenes are portrayed more like a sm dystopia created purely for the purpose of aggravating the marital relationship and creating a dystopia.
An insufferable three hours of tedium, it would be enough to make any Bergman viewer watch this movie if they were to be completely intolerant of his mediocrity (I can't believe Peter Cowie is trying to hardcore praise this one).
An insufferable three hours of tedium, it would be enough to make any Bergman viewer watch this movie if they were to be completely intolerant of his mediocrity (I can't believe Peter Cowie is trying to hardcore praise this one).