Remembering mother’s frankincense on daughter’s body Saraband post viewing thoughts
Of the many films that explored family relationships in his later years, Sara Bond, with its ten solid, well-proportioned movements and its consistent observation of a single event, is undoubtedly the most wide-ranging including mother-wife absence as an emotional substitute for incest, father-son oppression and The film also gives the most extreme view of both sexes – for a seeker who is coming to the end of his life, this is said to be his clearest conclusion and most sorrowful confession.
The film begins with Marianne’s straightforward confession to the camera, the overture and the first act are more like monologues in a stage play, and we can easily enter into Marianne’s private, sentimental nostalgia with such a direct and natural approach. Slowly as the characters’ relationships surface, the plot develops intensely – that is to say, Marianne fades out of the main line as hatred spreads and turmoil festers in reality. And Anna, the dead wife, mother, daughter-in-law, who appears only in a photograph, becomes the emotional link for all, and all, the mutually tormented parties are overflowing with attachment to her. Until the end when Marianne warms John’s loneliness with her old body and dissolves his sins, they both become together, in the midst of a chaotic family, the only home for the sinner except for Henry’s choice, which is the consequence of losing his place at the end of life and assimilate into the symbol of motherhood – thus, it is privately thought possible Bergman’s view of gender relations within the family can be understood from the transformation and assimilation of the two women who are not really involved in the matter in the film.
This point can be introduced by a shot in the middle of the film, where Marianne, after being frightened by the ugliness of the true face of the male represented by Henry, faces the icon – the camera pulls down, the born Jesus and Marianne’s hidden smile – and the position in which the connection is made and The sinner-Jesus/male-female connection is probably the conclusion, and the following is a rough analysis that illuminates the overall plot.
All events revolve around Anna’s absence, all suffering souls waiting for maternal appeasement. All the doors of the room close automatically, and Marianne, trapped in the whirlpool of three generations of intricate sins, becomes the substitute from the observer – the one who offers maternity and listens silently. Men are violent and fragile by nature , seeking “miracles” that are nothing more than a silent vessel to fill with their hatred of themselves; their love is like the memory of their mother’s breast milk in their daughter’s body. They have no compassion for their own kind, whether they are as lonely as they are, as unaware of love, and the accumulated wisdom of their experience only heightens their sensitivity to shame, so that across the mirror they themselves can only see hysterical anxiety, not to mention the prophecy of the Silent One from the grave, announcing the end of all the lies that sustain male existence. Compared with “Fanny and Alexander”, which rises to the topic of patriarchy and religion and completes the self-examination of men on the social level, this is a gut-wrenching confession that completely exposes oneself.
Because of the frankness, it is desperate. Unlike the late family ethics films represented by “Autumn Sonata”, “Sarabande” is brutal not only in its disgustingly abrupt presentation of relationships and out-of-control results, but the violence highlighted by “Autumn” is universally latent in all relationships, unconscious and unavoidable. In “Sa”, on the other hand, naked hostility is present throughout, and violence becomes hatred put into action, which, even more frighteningly, is all subconscious and driven by passionate choices. Love and violence, as strong passions, are essential elements, and only in Bergman’s films can the ambiguous, mutually encompassing symbiosis that is actually experienced in life be shown.
Finally, let’s talk about these very representative characters, since they have been involved in other works. Reading “Magic Lantern”, you will find that the influence of the early life and external environment on Bergman is unimaginable. From the characters of the main works, basically most of them can be said to be the product of the combination of self and other – John and Henry in this one are typical “Bergman-like characters “, intellectual middle-class spiritual crisis dying – these elements can be glimpsed in many of the author’s films. What is special is his divisive tendencies and unquenchable desire to attack – almost immediately regretting the humiliation as soon as it exits and the pleasure dissipates, almost enjoying the “painful sobriety” of not being able to cheat himself. Hating one’s own cruelty and understanding all one’s bad motives, the revelation of the secret about them almost announces one’s death sentence … Defined as: the cognitive ability to soar and look down on the splitting of the physical body writhing in the quagmire of nature, the only way to leave the illusion created by the dependence on “Anna’s love, Marianne’s body” and learn to give “love” is to connect the two and form a complete individual, but unfortunately, they are too old. Unfortunately, they are too old.
Finally, Bergman’s treasure is much more than the above as in talking about everything Dostoevsky and feminism, take the sound design, Tarkovsky in “Carving Time” praise of the technique only today in this film to perceive, about the subjective lens ultra-close close-ups, etc., can only marvel, not to make a half-understood of the superfluous.
