SYNOPSICS
Ansikte mot ansikte (1976) is a Swedish movie. Ingmar Bergman has directed this movie. Liv Ullmann,Erland Josephson,Aino Taube,Gunnar Björnstrand are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1976. Ansikte mot ansikte (1976) is considered one of the best Drama,Fantasy movie in India and around the world.
With her husband Eric at a medical congress in Chicago and their fourteen year old daughter at riding camp for the summer, psychiatrist Dr. Jenny Isaksson has emptied out their old house while their new house is being built, and has moved in with her grandparents in the house in which she grew up, she having temporarily assumed the role of senior physician at a psychiatric hospital filling in for a vacationing colleague. She is having a casual, meaningless affair with a man named Martin, while she believes that Tomas Jacobi, who she meets at a party, also is making sexual advances toward her. Regardless of if her assumption about Tomas is correct, the two become friends and frequent companions. In watching her grandmother lovingly take care of her ailing grandfather, remembering back to her childhood with her grandparents, spending time with Tomas, and processing an event associated with one of her more severe cases, that of a young woman named Maria, Jenny, in a fragile mental state,...
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Ansikte mot ansikte (1976) Reviews
One Performance Never To Forget.
As every one of Ingmar Bergman's films, "Face to Face" (1976) deals with Life, Love and Death. The Bergman's alter ego in the film is "a well-adjusted, capable and disciplined person, a highly qualified professional woman with a career, comfortably married to a gifted colleague and surrounded by what is called "the good things of life." It is this admirable character's shockingly quick breakdown and agonizing rebirth that I have tried to describe. I have also, on the basis of the material at my disposal, shown the causes of the disaster as well as the possibilities available to this woman in the future." (Ingmar Bergman) This seemingly successful woman who would attempt a suicide is played by Liv Ullmann and whatever has been said about her in this film as a psychiatrist who faces and struggles with her own nervous breakdown, still can not describe how she did it. For almost two hours, she is in every scene of the film, "lonely, ashamed", and facing unbearable nightmares of her past, struggling for her sanity. She gave, perhaps, the most powerful and unforgettable performance by any actress on the screen. She literally transforms herself in several different persons - her voice, facial expressions, the manner of speech, emotions - change with such a rapid speed and so effortlessly in front of you - it would take your breath away. I've never been as moved and fascinated by any performance on the screen as by Liv's in the film and I think the second time even more than the first one. Sure, it was a Bergman's film, his ideas, his anxieties; his "toothache" in the heart but it was Liv who lived through them and showed them with such powerful depth, honesty and selflessness that the film will always belong to her. This is one performance never to forget. Both Bergman and Ullmann were nominated for an Oscar (directing and acting) but for unknown and strange reasons, the movie is not available on DVD or even on tape. "yes" to the movie and YES! to Liv Ullmann
The power of the face.
This movie is nothing short of of a masterpiece of dramatic power and psychological insight. If the mark of a great work of art is that it takes a lot out of you while at the same time giving you a lot, then "Face to Face" is a great film by one of the cinema's (and the theatre's) greatest directors. During the 136-minute film we are confronted with the spectacle of an intelligent woman's soul being laid bare. It is the soul of Jenny Isakson (Liv Ullmann), a Stockholm psychiatrist, as she finds her confidently professional self-assured hold on the world slipping perilously into disarray. Liv Ullmann is of course no stranger to this type of intense Bergman role, from the mute actress of "Persona" to the defeated wife in the 1974 "Scenes form a Marriage" and in films like "Shame," "The Passion of Anna," and "Cries and Whispers." What a marvel! For virtually the entire length of this harrowing piece, the actress is on screen, and she is such a mistress of her craft, one feels like reaching up to the screen to embrace and perhaps congratulate her. It is that kind of moving performance. The much-praised scene in which she tells Erland Josephson about an attempted rape she experienced has the intensity of an operatic aria as she shifts moods: bemused laughter, pleading sobs, hysterical abandon. It is hard to see the junctures between each emotion. They meld into an overwhelming emotional experience. This and the other collaborative efforts of Bergman and Ullman have very few parallels in the history of cinema. Some of them might be: Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich, G.W. Pabst and Louise Brooks, Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina.
Very interesting, very well acted, and powerful.
This is a very good film. You better watch it after you have seen some of th other Bergman movie, because its one of his more complicated movies. A psychiatrist suffers from something she cant understand. We will join her in her search for redemption. On the way will see complicated relationships, dreams with a deep meaning, and metaphoric visions. Very powerful moments in this movie. Those who love Bergman are sure to enjoy this, this is one of the best of his 70s/80s movies. Except the interesting storyline there's also good acting form all the players and an amazing acting from Liv Ullmann. Her fans will surely enjoy this.
The greatest acting performance ever filmed
I saw this with friends when it was first released and twenty minutes after we had left the cinema we realized that no one had spoken. This is a masterful film with Liv Ullman's performance eclipsing any seen on screen. You feel the pain, the hurt and the confusion as you watch this woman's journey. A film for those who like intense, thought provoking and intelligent story telling.
Bergman at his best
Face to face is another example of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's masterful direction in order to penetrate into his actors' psyche. Bergman's sole intention in his movies is to convey the emotions, the interaction between different personalities and how they swift in the film. He uses long uninterrupted takes in such effect that many times throughout the film someone could get carried away and find itself present in the room with the protagonists. It's like Sven Nykvist forgets the camera somewhere recording, but the action continues... Bergman's usual partners are present obviously in Face to Face. Aformentioned cinematographer Sven Nykvist (who by the way has won two Oscars for Bergman's "Fanny & Alexander" and "Cries and Whispers" and was nominated for "face to face", does again superb job. But in my opinion the film is worth viewing mostly for Liv Ullmann's extraordinary performance, mominated for an Oscar as well. There is nothing that I could add, Bergman fans will find the master here in peak form. I hope all film fans will one day discover Ingmar Bergman's cinema, it would be an unpreceded experience. Better late than never...