Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata)1978
Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) (1978)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: A melancholy meditation on the unresolvable tension between parent and child, Autumn Sonata is a fitting swan song for the great Ingrid Bergman.
Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Charlotte Andergast
as Eva
as Helena
as Viktor
as Leonardo
as Professor
as Nurse
as Josef
as Uncle Otto
as Eva as a child
as Paul
as Uncle Otto
as Charlotte's private secretary
as Piano instructor
Critic Reviews for Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata)
All Critics (29) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (25) | Rotten (4) | DVD (2)
Bergman restores Ingrid Bergman to her proper place as one of the finest of screen actresses, teaming her with the superb Liv Ullmann in a pairing that simply must not be missed.
Bergman's casting coup lives up to expectations. Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann invest their roles with undeniable emotional conviction and impact.
The movie makes good chamber music: it's a crafted miniature with Bergman's usual bombast built, for once, into the plot requirements.
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.
Autumn Sonata can finally be seen as an austerely beautiful meditation on death and the not-always-realized possibility of reconciliation across generations.
Ingrid Bergman, Ingmar Bergman, and Liv Ullmann show that a mother's apathy can be just as harmful to a child as a verbal assault over a wire hanger (or a beating with one). Perhaps, more so.
Audience Reviews for Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata)
Affecting less due to the story, and more due to observing still-radiant Ingrid Bergman in the twilight of her life. Otherwise, there's not much happening in the filmmaking beyond "warm lighting," and the script seems like just a case of Ingmar struggling to find new ways to make characters intensely miserable.
Super Reviewer
Ingrid is great as a totally self involved woman of great musical talent but no outward vision beyond how it serves her no matter how she tries. The rest of the film is dour and terribly depressing which of course is par for the course with Ingmar Bergman. We are suppose to empathize with Liv Ullman's character but she seems stunted by her bad childhood unable to realize that at some point you have to accept people as they are and get on with the business of living.
Super Reviewer
This is one of the very best Ingmar Bergman films I have seen, and therefore one of the very best films. Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullman are simply amazing together as a mother and daughter combination from hell. Ingrid Bergman is terrific, despite a deliberately naff hairdo which makes her look like Queen Elizabeth II of the UK rather than the faded beauty she is. Liv Ullman also has visual nuances to enhance her character - the glasses, platted hair and jumpers enabling this beautiful woman to look frumpy. The acting is simply amazing, even through the subtitles you can tell. Fortunately Scandinavian vocal nuance is similar enough to English to enable us non-Swedish speakers to appreciate the acting. Of course, it has the Ingmar Bergman darkness to it. The sister with the horrible degenerative disease, the drowned toddler, the selfishness of the Ingrid Bergman character. If you get depressed along with the characters in films like this, you might be better off giving this one a miss. But for those with a taste for this type of claustrophobic drama, this is one of the most powerful films you will ever see.
Super Reviewer
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