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Autumn Sonata (1978)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:18
Fresh:17
Rotten:1
Average Rating:7.9/10
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: In AUTUMN SONATA, Ingrid Bergman plays Charlotte, a famous concert pianist who hasn't seen her daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann) in seven years when she decides to accept Eva and her husband's invitation... In AUTUMN SONATA, Ingrid Bergman plays Charlotte, a famous concert pianist who hasn't seen her daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann) in seven years when she decides to accept Eva and her husband's invitation to come for a prolonged visit. Also staying with the couple is Eva's younger sister, Helena, who suffers from a degenerative disease, and with whom Charlotte is visibly uncomfortable. Although Eva resents her estranged mother's having never taken much interest in either of her daughters' lives, she longs for a reconciliation and tries her best to please Charlotte at first. But after an evening of drink and reminiscences, emotions run amok, and Charlotte finds herself accused of the most severe parental shortcomings, which include being responsible for one daughter's chronic depression and the other's disability. Often considered one of the lesser works of Bergman's later period, AUTUMN SONATA is actually a compassionate and often insightful exploration of a strained relationship between parent and child--a relationship, however, that may not be quite past salvation yet. Ingrid Bergman's only collaboration with compatriot (and namesake) Ingmar Bergman also turned out to be her final movie role. [More]
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Lena Nyman, Halvar Bjork
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Lena Nyman, Halvar Bjork, Georg Lokkeberg, Knut Wigert
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Screenwriter: Ingmar Bergman
Producer: Richard Brick, Katinka Farago
Reviews for Autumn Sonata
Ingmar says, "No." Ingrid says, "Yes." They're both right and both wrong, but it is Ingrid, in her last feature film performance, whose "Yes" carries more conviction and authority.
This very good Ingrid and Ingmar Bergman film is very easy to love for its honesty and passion ...
The movie makes good chamber music: it's a crafted miniature with Bergman's usual bombast built, for once, into the plot requirements.
There is too much talk, talk, talk about feelings and not enough demonstration of them, but like cream, Ingrid keeps rising to the top of the chatter.
Of course Bergman's actresses suffer superbly in microscopic close-up, but the nagging doubt persists as to whether this is incisive psychodrama or just those old nordic blues again.
Though Ingrid and Ingmar Bergman aren’t related, their pairing on a movie set was a long-anticipated event
Probes in an intelligent and affecting way the ambivalent feelings in mother-daughter relationships
With its raw performances and lyrical dialogue this is a sombre, resonant, lingering drama about family dysfunction and emotional frustration.
[It] absolutely overwhelms our senses and becomes for 92 minutes the only reality we can know.
Autumn Sonata can finally be seen as an austerely beautiful meditation on death and the not-always-realized possibility of reconciliation across generations.
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