Face to Face

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.

Bergman, on the rave reviews in America for his overly-Janovian effort: "It's called THE ROAD TO MOROCCO. Bob Hope throws himself to the ground and begins to scream and foam at the mouth. The others stare at him in astonishment and ask what in the world he is doing. He immediately calms down and says, 'This is how you have to do it if you want to win an Oscar.' When I see FACE TO FACE and Liv Ullmann's incredibly loyal effort on my behalf, I still can't help thinking of THE ROAD TO MOROCCO."

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

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

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.

Boy Liv Ullmann really went there in this one. It is a very unpleasant place to be, and to watch. Bergman has done better with this sort of material many times and there's a very vivid feeling here of 'been there done that', but there's enough highlights of his expected analysis and deep characterizations to recommend a look here.

I connected with it emotionally, but at some points the sheer paw of camp burst out of the screen and smacked me in the face. Maybe I was just laughing out of embarrassment. Maybe the camp is in me, and not in Liv Ullman. Anyway I enjoyed the movie alot.

Standard Bergman film = exceptional film. Liv Ullmann has often been monumentally harsh and piercing in her roles in his films (usual as emotionally suffering women) and here is no different, but it may be her best role. She is remarkable, whether spazzing out in a mid-shot or looking towards our souls (or what's left) in uncomfortably personal close-ups. A good and confusing mix of reality and dreams, some of which feel very close to my own.

Through A Glass Darkly 2: The Darkening. Bergman continues making commercials for psychoanalysis. Ullmann delivers a phenomenal performance, and there are some neat things both script- and direction-wise as Bergman continues to mine horror for ideas, but at the same time there's not a whole lot here we haven't seen done better (or will soon see done better) in other Bergman movies.

As a psychological study it lacks a bit of restraint, and while it is true that she is pushing the limits of what is believable in a few of the scenes in which she almost goes into Pazuzu mode, Liv Ullmann is, once again, astoundingly fantastic in a Bergman film. Erland Josephson is very good too.

Mês especial do centenário de Ingmar Bergman filme #28. Estava achando este filme uma grande obra até o minuto final, aí desandou. Como já estive de ambos os lados o de paciente e o de profissional de saúde mental, achei esse retrato muito verdadeiro e pungente e das mais viscerais interpretações do cinema por parte de Liv Ullmann. Mas... aquele final otimista e abrupto é um pecado contra o cinema, contra a psicanálise e contra a psiquiatria, e sobretudo contra os pacientes,

90 to the TV version.

78.500

Maybe nothing is good after Persona. Psychoanalysis is bigger then movie itself and pushing it from the center of viewer watch.

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.

77.875

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.

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).