Everything about this film is just so great, yet in the end it just remains .... forgettable.

Bergman: "The Passion of Anna [...] was made on Farö Island during the fall of 1968 and carries traces of the winds that were blowing in those days both in the real world and in the world of film. In some respects, therefore, it looks very dated. In other ways it is powerful and shows a break with accepted film practices. I look at it with mixed feelings. [It is] in some ways a variation of Shame. It depicts what I really wanted to show in Shame -- the violence manifested in an underhanded way."

Not my favourite Bergman. It's really visually interesting, and 2 or 3 really compelling scenes, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat in the way that I oftentimes am with his other films. Also, I wasn't a fan of those meta-interviews with the actors. That being said, I don't want to undersell it. it's still Bergman. There's still enough there to make it an interesting film. It's worth seeing.

It's a little bit light on story due to the impressionistic nature of the editing, but overall an engaging drama about emotional isolation and social subterfuge.

I haven't seen Bergman so disjointed before. It's too messy, and the deconstructionist devices that make The Passion of Anna so peculiar hurt more than they help. Actors being interviewed about the roles they're playing? Really? And why was that dream sequence necessary? And why are we told Andreas started living with Anna without any on screen development? Maybe I should watch this again when I'm well rested. I liked it but it's frustrating.

Kind of between his earlier, broader work and Scenes From A Marriage. All of the thought provoking realness and excellent dialogue present. I think I'm developing sort a schoolboy crush on Liv Ullman and Bibi Andersson... and Max Von Sydow.

#922

meaning of life, existence of good, guilt, relationships...topics and questions we face over and over again in our lives AND in bergman's movies. he gets so close to reality, sometime, it's almost scaring. there's just so much sensitivity in the screenplays and in the acting of such great actors as max von sydow and liv ullman etc.

Cinema doesn't really get much better than this; coffee for the soul.

A masterpiece of Cinema.

950

Takes a while to get going, and the idea of interviewing the actors is a silly novelty. And the film is unfocused overall. But there is a lot of interesting stuff going on. No one does chamber drama, and those intense dialogues, like Bergman. There are some revealing interactions, some explosive, some wonderfully understated. The use of flashbacks is intriguing. And the exploration of "physical and psychological violence" is incredibly powerful and disturbing. And that final shot is brilliant.

Bergman does a perfect job of showing people as they are. Anna is the one character trying to tell the truth, while no one else is saying what they really mean. Bergman always shows people as we really are. The acting is utterly phenomenal, the cinematography is stunning, but all of these are overshadowed by the screenplay. There are some neat fourth wall breaks too.

950

Good Movie

It's perfect.

a bit more dense than some of bergman's more artsy movies, and it works decently well. the last shot displays the qualities i love about bergman, too bad his writing couldnt live up to his cinematography.

It's hard for me to see this is anything other than a failure - there's no real depth to the characters, and we're given no insight as to their psychological torment (which is apparently great, considering their melodramatic monologues). I'm also not a fan of the meta-experimental style Bergman's trying out here. As far as failures go, it's more interesting than most - I enjoy the photography, and as usual Bergman's troupe of actors is excellent - but I can't see myself revisiting this often.