Search
What's Hot
Day-by-Day Fall Schedule
Celebs With Their Pets
Shows We Lost This Season
Idol Runner-Up Takes Pay Cut?

Private Confessions

1997, Movie, NR, 125 mins

Private Confessions: Review

PRIVATE CONFESSIONS | ENSKILDA SAMTAL | PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS
starstarstarstar
Written by Ingmar Bergman, shot by his long-time cinematographer Sven Nykvist and superbly directed by Liv Ullmann -- Bergman's leading actress and lover during the late 1960s and '70s -- this is very much a Bergman film, despite his absence as director. Set in Sweden in 1925, it's the story of 36-year-old Anna Bergman (Pernilla August), who's trapped in an unsatisfying marriage to passionless cleric Henrik (Samuel Froler). For the past year, Anna has been carrying on with a young theology student named Tomas (Thomas Hanzon), and -- as she tells her uncle and spiritual adviser Jacob (Max von Sydow) -- she's never felt more fulfilled. Jacob nevertheless urges her to break off with Tomas and tell her husband everything: Lies compromise a person's essential sanctity, and he assures Anna that whatever pain she suffers will only make her stronger. He's wrong. The story unfolds through a series of five "private conversations" between Anna, Henrik, Jacob, Tomas and Anna's friend Maria (Kristina Adolphson). Like most of the films Bergman directed himself, it's an intensely personal work: It's interesting that this unhappy tale should be recounted as an incident in the lives of Anna and Henrik Bergman -- the central characters of THE BEST INTENTIONS, Bergman's somewhat fictionalized account of his parents' marriage, directed by Bille August and also starring August and Froler. The acting here is extraordinary, and Ullmann is a certainly a competent director, but the return to such themes of isolation and the possibility of faith in a distant and unknowable God really mark the film as a noteworthy addition to Bergman's body of work. And the sight of von Sydow vomiting up a communion wafer is a pretty good indication that age hasn't mellowed the master one whit. leave a comment --Ken Fox
Are You Watching?
Private Confessions
Loading ...
Advertisement

Our Partners

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. American Idol
  2. NCIS
  3. Big Bang Theory
  4. Voice
  5. Person of Interest
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Jessica Simpson
  2. Khloe Kardashian
  3. Kate Middleton
  4. Maria Menounos
  5. Kim Kardashian
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. Men In Black 3
  2. Avengers
  3. Battleship
  4. The Dictator
  5. Dark Shadows
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. The Bachelorette
  2. Keeping Up With the Kardashian...
  3. Young and the Restless
  4. Revenge
  5. Days of our Lives
more top videos