Autumn Sonata

In her disintegration loops-like devastating piece "Ingrid", Klara Lewis sampled a loop from the Bach Solo Suites for Cello that Leonardo plays near the end of the film. For her live performance, she slowed down a shot of Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) listening to and watching her daughter play a Chopin sonata on the piano. I can now understand such a choice given the sheer power and depth of Ingrid’s gaze. There is nothing like it; it contains everything from admiration, nostalgia, sorrow, pain, dissapointment, shame, and so many more that perhaps only a 30-minute slow-motion version might be able to capture. The mother's memories are only recalled within the frame of her career, the rest is an ocean of doubt and repression as self-defense. She's at the autumn of her lifetime, when change becomes an abstract idea that has become far too expensive to experience again. Every character expresses orally their thoughts, but there is no risk one might overhear something; the 'huis clos' format isn’t only a setting, it is a pure experience of closeness, all distances are crushed, we are in a bubble of conflicting emotions, where violence is private yet never closeted. It is a film about touch, every word and gesture feels haptic. Despite all this formal closeness, there is an immeasurable gulf between each person; the disabled girl is incomprehensible, the mother no longer recognizes anyone. Closeness serves secrecy and confidence, but never atonement. Everyone speaks aloud their thoughts except the husband that we hear internally; he is a secondary figure, a mere witness of the conflict, he is the closest to us narratively, and is as helpless as we are. In a film where dialogue is omnipresent, it is in the few moments when the characters are silent that their complex emotional ties can emerge on their faces. The Bergmans remind us of this masterful art of filming close shots on human expression, the surface where emerges the bottomless pit of pathos, in one of the most cathartic film ever made. In many ways, this film reminds me of Dreyer's Ordet, a family in constant mourning that has only its faith to cry and contemplate. I can only recommend to listen to Lewis' piece if you like this film and look for a similar cathartic, grieving and cleansing experience.