Faithless

FAITHLESS marks a kind of return for art-film master Ingmar Bergman via one of his latter scripts and the assured direction by one of his greatest actresses and muse, Liv Ullman. In traditional Bergman style, the story is framed like an intense therapy session, as it reveals the infidelity of Marianne, who is cheating on her conductor husband with his best friend, a screenwriter. The autobiographical elements are enhanced by the ‘flashback’ structure in which the elderly writer relives this past through a conversation with his imagined heroine. As might be expected from a Bergman script, the bruising emotional stakes are raised ever higher, with the fallout from the faithlessness causing problems onscreen whilst the real devastation remains offscreen. Ullman elicits powerful performances from all, including Bergman veteran Josephson, but the film belongs to the expressive Endre as Marianne.