SARABAND

Year: 2003
USA: Sony Pictures Classics
UK: Tartan Films
Cast: Liv Ullman, Erland Josephson, Börje Ahlstedt, Julia Dufvenius, Gunnel Fred
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Countries: Sweden / Norway / Italy / Germany / Finland / Denmark / Austria
Language: Swedish (English Subtitles)
USA & UK: 107 mins
USA Rated: R for brief nudity, language and a violent image
UK Certificate: 15 contains one bloody image
USA Release Date: 8 July 2005 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 7 October 2005 (Limited Release - London, NFT)


Synopsis

In SARABAND, Marianne (Liv Ullman) and Johan (Erland Josephson) (the couple in SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE(1973)) meet again after thirty years without contact, when Marianne suddenly feels a need to see her ex-husband again. She decides to visit Johan at his old summer house in Sweden's rural Dalarna province. And so, one beautiful autumn day, there she is, beside his reclining chair, waking him with a light kiss.

Also staying at the summer house are Johan' son Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt) and Henrik's daughter Karin (Julia Dufvenius). Henrik is giving his daughter cello lessons and already sees her future as staked out. Relations between father and son are very strained, but both are protective of Karin. They all still mourning Anna, Henrik's much-loved wife, who died two years ago, yet who, in many ways, remains present among them.

Marianne soon realises that things are not all as they should be, and she finds herself unwillingly drawn into a complicated and upsetting power struggle.