77.875

In one of Bergman's most depressing movies, a family woman descends into madness. Both Cassavetes and Fassbinder have done the subject more justice, and it's hard to appreciate after seeing Bergman's more important works. He uses the same devices he had already used to better effect, such as Wild Strawberries' seeing oneself dead in a dream. Liv Ullmann scolds her parents (thinly veiling Bergman's own childhood issues) in a cathartic nervous breakdown, but this is better done in Autumn Sonata.

Though many consider this to be one of Bergman's best, I have to disagree. Face to Face deals with themes that should be familiar to anyone familiar with Bergman's films: Love, the horrors of life, death. As usual, Ullman's acting is superb. Though there were some striking scenes, I felt that the film would have been more effective had it been about 20 minutes shorter.

For the first hour or so Bergman failed to hook me into the story. In the second hour, with the dreams and the suicide and the total mental breakdown, it started to work for me. A vast number of Bergman's movies have these magical, transcendent moments that stick with you. They're right out front and obvious in his early stuff, but even films like Cries and Whispers have them. Some of the dream sequences approached this transcendent state, but never crossed into it.

A complex and intense work, but as others have said, the array of themes have been better accomplished by Bergman himself, both earlier and later in his career.

painstaking, painful, truthful, powerful, simply amazing, overwhelming and depressing at the same time...

The best of Bergman's lesser known works. A deeply psychological journey into one woman's emotional breakdown, told through fantasies, dreams and flashbacks along with the usual Bergmanian drama. Emotionally powerful and much more personal than most of his works, it's well worth tracking down (although it's still quite rare today).

The dream sequences bother me, as they always do (although in this case, they're better than most). I'd much rather learn of a character's inner turmoil through monologue or dialogue, which Bergman excels at anyway. And I might as well add that Ullmann's acting goes over the top for a while, although perhaps this is more the fault of the script. Otherwise, it's a bravura performance by Ullmann, and an insightful film. Not among Bergman's best, but almost any Bergman is worth watching.

An overwhelmingly earnest film; Penetratingly sorrowful, matchlessly horrifying and unrelentingly touching. Scary as fuck and fantastic as hell!