Almost There: Liv Ullmann in "Scenes from a Marriage"

by Cláudio Alves

I confess that, when I first came up with the idea for this week's Almost There write-up, I didn't expect its subject to be so weirdly topical. First up, there's the actual raison d'être for the piece, which is the Criterion Channel's new "Marriage Stories" collection, in which Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage is featured. Then there's the whole Hamilton kerfuffle, which caused controversy over the Academy's definition of what is and isn't cinema or what should and shouldn't be eligible for the Oscars (two importantly different questions). This is relevant because the ineligibility of Bergman's film caused a major ruckus back in 1974 and even prompted a couple of notorious open letters (another topical subject, unfortunately). Finally, we have the recent news that the television cut of Scenes from a Marriage is going to be remade by HBO with Michelle Williams and Oscar Isaac in the leading roles. 

We'll return to some of those matters later on, but, for now, let's concentrate on Liv Ullmann's masterful performance as Marianne in Scenes from a Marriage…

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Bergman in '57

by Cláudio Alves

Ingmar Bergman is my favorite filmmaker of all-time. That being said, I'm aware of the difficult reputation his cinema has earned over the decades. As Nick Taylor wrote in his fabulous piece about Harriet Andersson, few directors have so masterfully captured the overwhelming pain of unhappiness as Ingmar Bergman did. In his films, God is either dead or a giant stony-faced spider, a monster intent on causing suffering to everyone, making for a cinematic cosmos where agony is the most universal experience of all. It's heavy stuff which justly earns the fame of depressing art, though I'd argue that there's more to Bergman's cinema than constant unbearable ache.

Just look at his 1957 masterpieces, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries…

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Posterized: The Best of Icelandic Cinema

by Nathaniel R

A few weeks back we celebrated Romanian cinema due to Whistlers, their most recent Oscar submission, hitting VOD. Why not follow suit today as Iceland's latest Oscar submission, A White White Day, arrives for home viewing? A White White Day is a moving character study about a widower dealing with new revelations about his wife after her death in a car accident. Meanwhile he's building a home for his daughter against the Icelandic landscape which makes for memorable recurring tableaus. We reviewed it at TIFF last year and it's worth checking out. Especially if you love Nordic cinema or are familiar with the work of Iceland's greatest movie star Ingvar E Sigurdsson, who is typically perfect here. We imagine that this film would have ruled this year's Edda Awards (Iceland's Oscars essentially) but the Eddas have been postponed indefinitely (they were originally scheduled for March) due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

And on that note let's look back at the most essential, famous, acclaimed, influential (or some combo thereof) Icelandic films of the past 40 years via our Posterized series. We've put asterisks beside all the titles that star Sigurdsson since we love him and you will too after screening A White White Day.

How many of these 18 Icelandic films have you seen? 

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TIFF Quickie: Crazy White Women!

by Nathaniel R

For this last batch of short TIFF reviews, let's look at three films about mysterious and/or psychologically complex female characters. The post title was glib but the films aren't. 

DISCO (Jorunn Mykelbust Syversen, Norway)
This puzzling drama centers on a champion dancer whose mom and step-dad run some kind of evangelical church. Apparently in Scandivania -- as with America -- conservative faith movements are on the rise. Syversen shows empathy for her characters but chills it with a clinically detached rhythym to the cutting. The lost protagonist Mirjam (Josefine Frida Pettersen) has mysterious physical troubles and vacant psychology that can bring flickers of Todd Haynes' Safe (1995) to mind.

Syversen's strongest skill seems to be in observational mode. In one escalating series of scene at a Jesus camp the choices in camera distance are particularly compelling. In medium shot we observe a group of boys being told to breathe quickly in and out of paper bags to drive out the demons inside them. Cut to a long shot as we watch them comically pass out as they hyperventilate. This is a followed by a not at all comical baptism that is shot more like a drowning. Despite Syverson's obvious skill and a tight running time (94 minutes), Disco is far too repetitive and its point of view remains as opaque as Mirjam's psychology. It's not enough, always, to merely observe. C

EMA (Pablo Larraín, Chile)
The first image is a startling one: a still working traffic light engulfed in flames...

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TIFF: "A White White Day"

by Nathaniel R

In the middle of the stylish grief-stricken Icelandic drama, what appears to be an amateur children's play is airing on the television. The camera drifts to it and stays far longer than is natural for "background" atmosphere in a movie. An astronaut and assorted spacesuit wearing children, have experienced some kind of spacecraft crash. As we zero in on the television, the lone adult onscreen. after finding out that each of his charges are still alive (for now), launches into a hysteric speech about how 'we're all going to die. Including your parents and siblings. Yes, even you.' Salka, an eight year-old towhead granddaughter of the the film's protagonist, watches the television with her cheerio-sucking baby brother, entirely unfazed by this truth. Obviously children's entertainment like this would only fly in Scandinavia or maybe France, where young'uns can also drink wine with their parents and learn their existential nihilism young.  

Which is not to snarkily say that A White White Day is nihilistic. Just that it's pragmatically clear-eyed even when it should be crying. Far from callous and cold, despite the temperatures suggested by that omnipresent fog, thick-maned Icelandic horses, and all the heavy sweaters, the film is warm when it counts. This is a compassionate drama about grief and the sideways behaviour that will out if you keep stifling the main thing...

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