MOVIE REVIEW : Ullmann Makes Directorial Debut in Exquisite ‘Sofie’

As a socially conscious actress, Liv Ullmann has often chosen roles more from her heart than her head, with mixed results. However, for “Sofie” (at the Music Hall), her stunning directorial debut, she evokes the style and tradition of her mentor, Ingmar Bergman, for whom she gave her finest performances.

Like “Fanny and Alexander,” and subsequent films that Bergman has written but not directed, “Sofie” is an exquisitely detailed, leisurely paced period drama celebrating family life in all its joys and sorrows. Although it would seem almost certain that Ullmann drew artistic inspiration from Bergman, her film is entirely her own.

“Sofie” has been adapted by Ullmann and Danish poet, novelist and playwright Peter Poulsen from noted Danish author Henri Nathansen’s 1932 novel “Mendel Philipsen & Son.” In the title role, the patrician Karen-Lise Mynster, a member of Copenhagen’s Royal Theater, plays a 28-year-old Copenhagen Jew on the verge of spinsterhood when she meets, at a soiree at her uncle’s mansion, a dashing painter (Jesper Christensen).

He beguiles Sofie by painting a dual portrait of her beloved parents (Ghita Norby, Erland Josephson) before painting one of her. Her father, not unexpectedly, will not hear of her marrying a gentile; besides, at just that moment an acceptable suitor, Jonas (Torben Zeller) approaches her father, asking for Sofie’s hand in marriage.

“Sofie” is very specific in time--it begins in 1886 and concludes 21 years later--and place; also of community, that of the solidly conservative bourgeoise Danish Jewry. Yet it possesses such a strong sense of life and of the complexity of human emotions that anyone who suspects that his or her life is a reasonably even mix of happiness and sadness should be able to identify with Sophie and the key people in her life.

As a period piece “Sofie” is faultless, with wonderful cluttered but warm and inviting late 19th-Century interiors and equally appropriate costumes, yet it is very timely--or rather timeless--in its sharp sense of life’s trade-offs. That Sofie has made a sensible rather than passionate marriage does not destroy all her chances at happiness, especially with the birth of her son, her only child.

Yet what sustains Sofie and her relatives, a traditional Jewish life centered on family and religion, also restricts them, sometimes to the point of suffocation. Her parents are in complete harmony with each other and their faith, but Sofie’s three aunts have never been able to marry for a lack of suitable men.

The sweet-tempered but fragile Jonas, so adoring of his own mother, is made vulnerable for having married a woman who does not love him; his more dynamic brother (Stig Hoffmeyer) and Sofie must struggle with their mutual attraction. Sofie at times feels that her life is an unopened book and that those who’ve tried to open it have always fumbled.

As a director, Ullmann equals her finest moments as an actress. Her sense of the visual is so strong that “Sofie” often has the feel of a silent film in its concern for movement and gesture. Ullmann pays virtually as much attention to hands as she does faces; there is much emphasis on people touching one another, reaching out for one another.

It comes as no surprise that Ullmann is a wonderful director of actors, and her cast performs as a flawless ensemble. Mynster can’t be said to resemble Glenn Close, except that both are handsome rather than conventionally beautiful women, but she is like Close in her intelligence and authority. Yet for all its superb acting “Sofie” (Times-rated Mature for adult themes, some nudity) is--and rightly should be--a film of images that linger in the memory--of people gathering and parting, of faces alternately glowing with smiles and wracked with grief, of everyone caught up in the ebb and flow of life itself.

*

‘Sofie’

Karen-Lise Mynster: Sofie

Ghita Norby: Sofie’s mother

Erland Josephson: Sofie’s father

Jesper Christensen: Hans Hojby, the painter

Torben Zeller: Jonas

An Arrow release of a Danish-Norwegian-Swedish co-production. Director Liv Ullmann. Producer Lars Kolvig. Screenplay by Ullmann, Peter Poulsen; based on Henri Nathansen’s novel “Mendel Philipsen & Son.” Cinematographer Jorgen Persson. Editor Grethe Moldrup. Costumes Jette Termann. Music selections from classical music. Art director Peter Hoimark. Sound designer Henrik Moller-Sorensen. In Danish, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (for adult themes, some nudity).