BEST MINI-SERIES EVER!!!!!

(Like the title? I'm experimenting with writing more like newsgroup posters.)

Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973)
5 Stars
Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Starring Liv Ullman

This has the production values and episodic structure of a mini-series because that's what it was. It consists mainly of closeups of a married couple talking. It's not funny, there's no action, and no sex worth the name; there are whole episodes whose cast consists solely of the married couple. But it is the best movie I've seen since Strictly Ballroom a year ago.

The acting is both brilliant and technically perfect. Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson are fascinating to watch, yet portray believable characters. They have a bit too much of a tendency to wax philosophical over marriage to be mistaken for the couple next door (this is a Bergman movie, after all), but neither do they partake in the fantastically overwrought neuroses of Woody Allen.

The dialogue is subtle, yet forceful; everyday, yet timeless. Bergman lapses into a few monologues in the latter half of the series, but otherwise, this is a work for the masses.

It has a strong, but realistic, story of a perfect couple whose marriage goes wrong. In his New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson says Woody Allen "is so near to Bergman already, yet so timid about the Swede's strength of commitment." The Criterion Collection DVD of Scenes includes an interview with Bergman in which he expresses his approval of the large spike in divorces in Denmark and family counselling in Sweden after the initial airing of this mini-series. He intended this to break up viewers' marriages — that's strength of commitment backed by talent. By comparison, even Annie Hall feels like a film school project.