Ingmar Bergman’s marital drama is painful, absorbing and worth the strain, with Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson giving the quarrels an uncomfortable familiarity. The length and repeated arguments can wear us down, but the attention to these two people earns it.
Scenes from a Marriage is an absorbing, often distressing film about how married people speak when being understood has become difficult. Ingmar Bergman, who writes and directs, gives Johan and Marianne room to explain themselves, then makes us sit through the consequences of those explanations. We recommend it, with a warning about the stamina its 169 minutes require. The interest is in how these two people hurt each other, then justify what they have said with explanations that can be almost as painful.
Liv Ullmann makes Marianne’s need to be understood painfully clear without making everything she says seem fair. There is enough self-deception here to frustrate any wish for a straightforwardly sympathetic partner, and she lets the contradictions remain visible. Erland Josephson gives Johan the same uncomfortable freedom to seem reasonable while causing harm. Together, they make the conversations feel like encounters between people who know each other’s habits and still repeatedly misunderstand what is being said.
We flinched at the casual nagging, because the two actors make the hurt sound so ordinary. Nothing about the way they speak suggests that either needs a special occasion to be unkind. The writing also allows moments of happiness, which stop the unhappiness becoming an exercise in watching two people we simply want to get away from. We keep listening because there is something recognisable in their wish for closeness, even when their behaviour makes closeness difficult.
Sven Nykvist’s close-ups make it difficult to take refuge in the surroundings. Faces occupy our attention while conversations take place in rooms, and the stark presentation gives small changes of expression a weight that more elaborate staging might dissipate. Björn Thulin’s production design fits that restraint: the interiors leave us attending to the people rather than inspecting their possessions. This restricted space serves the performances, though it also makes a long film feel longer when an exchange begins to repeat itself.
Siv Lundgren’s editing has a difficult job here, giving a largely conversational drama enough movement without making the quarrels feel neatly managed. The film allows time for an explanation to become less convincing as it continues, and that patience often pays off. It does not always know when we have heard enough. A few of Ingmar Bergman’s exchanges exhaust their point before they end, and the accumulation of talk occasionally left us wanting a pause rather than another attempt to explain the same unhappiness.
In a marriage drama, talk can become a way of passing time until something happens. Here the repeated attempts to explain a feeling or justify an unkindness are enough to hold our attention for most of the running time. The writing lets happiness matter without treating it as proof that the trouble is imagined. A pleasant exchange does not mean these people have suddenly learnt how to live together, and the performances keep that uncertainty present without asking us to take sides.
Choose it for the performances, and allow the full evening. These performances deserve more attention than a film playing while something else gets done. If a long domestic argument is the last thing needed tonight, leave it for another night.
