'Scenes from a Marriage' is many things. Bleak, desolate, depressing, positive, hopeful, heartbreaking. But the thing that stands out most about it is how powerful and interesting it actually is. Weighing in at nearly three hours long, and originally broadcast as a mini series, it could be accused of being heavy.
Ingmar Bergman again focuses on the emotions and character development as opposes to a strong narrative.
It's intense, and the whole film revolves around a couple's disintegrating marriage. Things start off well, with the couple seemingly happy, but then put of the blue the husband returns from a trip to Europe to say that he has fallen in love with a younger woman. He leaves to be with her, then comes back six months later.
Both characters are incredibly unlikeable, the husband, thoughtless and chauvinistic and the wife, pathetic and desperate. (When the man goes to leave his wife, instead of begging her forgiveness, he insults and criticises her and lists all the reasons he hates her, dhe in turn apologises to him and offers to help him pack!)
Whether the film reaches a conclusion is really up to the individual viewer. The pair don't seem to be able to live with or without each other which seems to make the whole film utterly pointless anyway.
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