Just what I expected

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The first must-see film of the year.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Visually, it lacks the aesthetics of Bergman's black and white movies. Theatrically, it's melodramatic. Both Ingrid and Liv overact their parts (Liv's ridiculous, oversized eyeglasses are a distraction.) Ullmann's climactic monologue of woes is the most powerful part of the movie but too long. In general, it lacks subtlety and the ending is a weak attempt at transformation which lacked credibility for me. Maybe in its day it was groundbreaking psychologically but I think better acting and editing was needed for greatness. The subplot with the disabled sister and especially the cryptic flashback to her youth seem unneeded to me, just a thickening rather than a new flavor. The scene where daughter and then mother play the same piano work by Chopin is quite original and well done. It merits seeing as a work by Bergman with Bergman as lead for your fund of film experience.

It is Ingrid Bergman's big screen swan song and the two renowned Bergman compatriots' one and only collaboration. Charlotte Andergast (Bergman) is a renowned pianist who recently lost her companion Leonardo (Løkkeberg), so she accepts the invitation to stay with her eldest daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann) and her husband Viktor (Björk) for some time, whom she hasn't seen for seven years.This highly nerve-wracking chamber drama begins with Viktor's breaking-the-fourth-wall monologue about him and Eva's temporal life, he is a minister and how they are united under the guidance of the parish work. Then Eva brings him the letter she writes to invite Charlotte, at first impression, Eva is a tender, self-effacing and soft-spoken woman. Only when Charlotte arrives, who is presumably a self-centered artist with elegance, a vivacious but neglectful mother, garrulous about the last days of Leonardo, puts on a strong patina of being high spirited and after the initial and necessary pleasantry, Eva throws the first bomb, she tells her Helena (Nyman), Charlotte's bed-ridden, mentally disabled younger daughter, is also here, whom Charlotte puts in a health institution for years, but now she has been under the attendance of Eva for two years. The mother-daughters reunion proceeds into a rather awkward situation, as Charlotte is more than unwillingly to face her ill daughter, which clearly evokes her guilty conscience for being absent most of the time. After dinner, a turbulent undercurrent is grafted on Charlotte's professional advice on Eva's piano skill, from Eva's angle, she never quite inherit any merits from her mother, neither the look or the talent. This is one of the main reason of their clash, under her vulnerable mien, she is in hopeless anguish. After an interlude about the premature death of Viktor and Eva's four-year- old son and a tête-a-tête between Viktor and Charlotte (during which Viktor refers that Eva is incapable of love), in the still of the night, Charlotte is awaken from a nightmare, Eva hears the noise and they embark on a thorough heart-to-heart two-hander, Eva divulges all her unhappy childhood memories and attributes it to Charlotte's career-first option; while Charlotte tries to justify the story from her side, but in no avail, both actresses' performances are sparklingly galvanizing, Ullmann is fearlessly aggressive, arbitrarily unforgiving, while Bergman refutes with a tour-de-force achievement, unyieldingly emits compassionate remorse and unexpected perplexity. Both actresses competently consummate their characters' emotional arcs, which is undeniably enthralling to watch, even for those who don't feel comfortable in Bergman's school. Personally I will give the edge to Bergman, considering her the harsh similarities between the role and her legendary personal life, and it is a stupendous curtain call for her illustrious career, although I impulsively think this performance is her career-best. The bond between a mother and a daughter often comes off as an amalgam of love and hatred, AUTUMN SONATA is at its best to dissect the relationship in dialectics, there is no right or wrong in the story, firstly, viewers is prone to cold-shoulder Charlotte's self-seeking pretentiousness, her failure in motherhood, but, when Eva's anger is fully emancipated, her one-sided blame- shooting accusation is also defectively biased, Ingmar Bergman is a true maestro in concocting this kind of brutal revelation of human being's deep-rooted character deficiency, it is not a parable, it is just a real life situation may occur to many others, unfortunately this time one might also sense a tint of misogyny. In the end, there is no sign of reconciliation despite Eva writes an apologetic letter, which Charlotte may or may not receive, the whole mess cannot save them from their respective mental condition, leastwise, they know each other better afterward, the scar may never be healed and truth hurts, yet everyone of us is living with both pain and happiness, simultaneously, as long as we come to terms with that, we will be fine.

A married daughter who longs for her mother's love gets visited by the latter, a successful concert pianist.I hate to say it, but as cool as it is to have Bergman and Bergman working together, I just did not think this was as great as it should have been. At least part of that is because it is in color, and I think Ingmar Bergman's finest work was done in black and white.This was Ingrid Bergman's last performance in a major theatrical feature film, and it is great to see her under such strong direction, even if this is not regarded as her best role. Sure, it won a Golden Globe, but I am not at all convinced it should have. And Ingrid's Oscar nomination for best actress? That is a tough sell.

Ingrid is great as a totally self involved woman of great musical talent but no outward vision beyond how it serves her no matter how she tries. This was her final feature and second to last acting work and it's heartbreaking watching her full mastery of her craft to realize that while still in full command of her gift illness cut her down. The rest of the film is dour and terribly depressing which of course is par for the course with Ingmar Bergman. We are supposed to empathize with Liv Ullman's character but she seems stunted by her bad childhood unable to realize that at some point you have to accept people as they are and get on with the business of living.