Höstsonaten

''Autumn Sonata'' () is a 1978 tragedy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and starring Ingrid Bergman (in her final film role), Liv Ullmann and Lena Nyman. Its plot follows a celebrated classical pianist and her neglected daughter who meet for the first time in years, and chronicles their painful discussions of how they have hurt each other. It was the only collaboration between Ingrid Bergman and Ingmar Bergman (who were not related).

''Autumn Sonata'' was the last of Ingmar Bergman's films to be made for theatrical exhibition; all of his films made after it, even those screened in theatres, were television productions.

Plot

Eva, the wife of Viktor, the village pastor, invites her mother Charlotte for a visit to her village after seven years of separation. Charlotte is a world-renowned pianist, somewhat eccentric, aging, and has survived several husbands. Eva is not as talented as the mother (despite having written two books and playing the piano passably), but she takes pride in her life as a wife, mother, and caretaker of her disabled sister Helena, whom she has taken out of the hospital into her own home. Helena's condition has left her paralyzed, and Eva is the only one who can understand her limited speech ability. In her everyday life, Eva also struggles with her marriage to Viktor, whom she respects but does not love, and is still deeply affected by the tragic drowning of their son Erik, just one day short of his fourth birthday.

The presence of Helena in Eva's house is shocking to the aging mother. She makes a gift of her own wristwatch to Helena, and listens to Eva playing Prelude No. 2 in A minor by Chopin. She immediately re-performs the prelude, offering her own interpretation of the music. Before going to bed, Charlotte decides to make a gift of her own car to her daughter. She plans to take a flight home, and buy a new car for herself, as a measure of her altruism. At night, Charlotte wakes up from a nightmare: it seems that one of her daughters is choking her. She goes into the living room followed by Eva, who had heard her mother screaming from the nightmare.

Mother and daughter begin an impassioned rediscovery of their past relationship. Their conversation turns into a heated confrontation as Eva accuses Charlotte of prioritizing her career and social life over motherhood, undermining her self-worth, and forcing her to have an abortion during a pregnancy with another man—Viktor overhears this but chooses not to intervene. Eva reveals how this neglect devastated Helena as well, leading to her health decline. Charlotte initially defends herself, but eventually admits that she has never truly loved anyone and pointlessly begs Eva for forgiveness. As the argument continues, Helena painfully drags herself out of her bed and crawls toward the stairs leading to the living room where Eva and Charlotte are. Once she reaches the landing, she helplessly calls out, "Mama, come!"

In the morning, Charlotte departs on a train accompanied by her agent and reflects on her unsettling encounter with Helena, asking, "Why couldn't she die?" At home, Viktor desperately tries to ease Helena's severe emotional breakdown, while Eva visits the grave of her deceased son, grappling with suicidal thoughts. Eva eventually returns home and writes an apology letter to her mother, which Viktor reads aloud. The scene briefly shifts to a different setting, where Eva appears to read the letter to Charlotte, before returning to Viktor, who seals it, leaving its fate uncertain.

Cast

Production

Background

Due to his battle with the Swedish tax authorities at the time, Ingmar Bergman produced ''Autumn Sonata'' through his West German company, Personafilm GmbH, with main financing from Lew Grade's British ITC Film, and shot the film in an old film studio outside Oslo in Norway. Although formally a German production (with the German title, ''Herbstsonate'', being the official original title), the dialogue is in Swedish, most of the crew and actors were Swedish, and the world premiere was in Stockholm.

Peter Cowie, in the notes to the Criterion DVD edition of the film, summarizes the production, stating: "Shot in Norway, with British and American backing, and featuring Swedish dialogue, ''Autumn Sonata'' emerged from one of the darkest spells in Ingmar Bergman's life. In 1976 he had gone into voluntary exile in Munich after being accused of evading tax on the income from certain films... Autumn Sonata... marks the swan song of Ingrid Bergman’s career, fulfilled her long-held desire to make a film with her namesake."

The piano piece in the film is Frédéric Chopin's Prelude No. 2 in A minor played by Käbi Laretei, whose hands are shown whenever Ingrid Bergman is depicted playing the piano.

Reception

Critical reception

In the ''Chicago Reader'', Dave Kehr opined that ''Autumn Sonata'' "makes good chamber music: it's a crafted miniature with Bergman's usual bombast built, for once, into the plot requirements." Conversely, Gary Arnold of ''The Washington Post'' felt that its story was "a dubious variation on familiar neurotic themes" in Bergman's work, but also wrote that "one can be impressed by Bergman's instrumentalists while rejecting his composition. ... ''Autumn Sonata'' enjoys instant status as an acting showcase." Film critic Roger Ebert ranked the film at No. 5 in his list of ''10 Best Films of 1978''.

Retrospective evaluation is favorable. In 2002, Keith Phipps of ''The A.V. Club'' wrote, "When it was released in 1978, Ingmar Bergman's ''Autumn Sonata'' received positive to indifferent reviews, written off by many as a minor work from a great director. ... With the burden of high expectations lifted, ''Autumn Sonata'' can finally be seen as an austerely beautiful meditation on death and the not-always-realized possibility of reconciliation across generations." The film has an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 33 reviews with the consensus: "A melancholy meditation on the unresolvable tension between parent and child, ''Autumn Sonata'' is a fitting swan song for the great Ingrid Bergman."

Accolades

Remakes and stage adaptations

* '' Tehzeeb'' (2003) is a Hindi film inspired by ''Autumn Sonata''.
* A stage adaptation was performed at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in 2009 with Marie Göranzon and Maria Bonnevie.
* In April 2011, a new theatrical adaptation of ''Autumn Sonata'', based on Bergman's original screenplay, had its World Premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT, directed by Robert Woodruff.
* In 2017, a Swedish-language opera, '' Höstsonaten'', was premièred at the Finnish National Opera. The music is composed by Sebastian Fagerlund and the libretto by is based upon Bergman's screenplay.

See also

* ''High Heels'', a 1991 Spanish film directed by Pedro Almodovar, and partially inspired by ''Autumn Sonata''

Notes

References

External links

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{{National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film

1978 films
1978 drama films
Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe winners
Films about abortion
Films about classical music and musicians
Films about dysfunctional families
Films about parenting
Films about widowhood
Films adapted into operas
Films directed by Ingmar Bergman
Films set in Sweden
Films shot in Norway
Films with screenplays by Ingmar Bergman
ITC Entertainment films
Swedish drama films
1970s Swedish-language films
Films about mother–daughter relationships
1970s Swedish films