Ullmann, Bergman Team in ‘Faithless’

Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann made film history with nine films, from “Persona” (1966) to “Autumn Sonata” (1977). They resumed their collaboration when Bergman, who retired from film directing with “Fanny and Alexander” (1983), asked Ullmann to direct “Private Confessions” (1996), based on his script drawn from his parents’ unhappy marriage.

That film proved to be as oppressive as it was impressive, but when Bergman, now 82, asked Ullmann to bring another of his stories to the screen, the result, “Faithless,” has turned out to be an unqualified triumph, a highlight in the careers of both Bergman and Ullmann, who has now directed four films since 1992.

As luminous as it is shattering, “Faithless” is complex, challenging and richly rewarding, and it glows with the kind of wrenchingly selfless portrayals that are the hallmark of the Bergman classics. Indeed, Ullmann has drawn from actress Lena Endre an awesomely harrowing portrayal of the kind that Ullmann herself gave for Bergman.

Glowingly photographed by Jorgen Persson, “Faithless” opens with a distinguished-looking, silver-haired older man, called Bergman (Erland Josephson), in a contemplative mood in his handsome, isolated island retreat. He is beginning to think about his next script, inspired from an incident long ago in his own life when he abandoned a woman pregnant with his child for another woman. In his imagination, an actress (Endre) appears before him in his study as he sits at his desk. She becomes the Marianne of the script he will be developing but also takes on a life of her own.

The film-within-the-film unfolds as a recollection on the part of Marianne, with cuts back to Bergman’s study so that we can witness his reaction to her account of how an adulterous fling that was supposed to be, in her words, “simple and exciting,” had excruciatingly painful consequences.

Marianne is a successful stage actress, a stunning, highly sensual woman of about 40. She is married to Markus (Thomas Hanzon), a conductor launched on a brilliant international career. After 11 years the couple still have a passionate relationship and a 9-year-old daughter, Isabelle (Michelle Gylemo), whom they adore. They spend a lot of time with their friend David (Krister Henriksson), a divorced theater and stage director known as a perfectionist on the set and for carelessness in his personal life. Marianne thinks of the handsome David as a brother, but as Markus takes off for an American tour and Marianne prepares for a Paris sojourn, it’s easy for David to join her by scheduling meetings for a co-production deal on his next project. It’s the old story: what has been anticipated as a discreet, casual romance turns into an all-consuming affair.

Paris is thrilling, but Marianne and David are brought down to earth with a jolt when back in Sweden they are caught in bed together by a devastated Markus, acting on a tip from a member of the theater company for whom Marianne is preparing her next role. At the outset, Bergman has observed of divorce that “with one cut it slices more deeply than life itself.” When divorce, plus sole custody of Isabelle, is what Markus adamantly demands, he creates a situation that will yield emotional pain beyond imagining.

Of course “Faithless” is about lots more than divorce, even though Ullmann and Bergman, who married and divorced others (they had a longtime romance and a child but were never married), restore to it a seriousness all too often evaded nowadays. On one level it reveals Bergman’s deeply imaginative vision of the creative process. On another it evokes an awareness of how little people can know of themselves and therefore how unwittingly they can unleash terrible suffering and loss.

Ultimately, “Faithless” is a most intensely personal film for both Bergman and Ullmann. For Bergman it was of primary importance to confront the proud and jealous David’s inability to act with kindness and responsibility in Marianne’s darkest hour; for Ullmann it was crucial to show the impact of Marianne’s infidelity upon Isabelle.

Endre receives from the entire cast the support worthy of her own towering performance. Henriksson shows us in David a man of treacherously easy charm, while Hanzon’s Markus emerges as a man whose passion is equaled by his vulnerability; Ullmann has said that Markus and David represent different aspects of Bergman himself. Ullmann and Bergman’s “Faithless” is a glorious coda to one of world cinema’s greatest collaborations.

* MPAA rating: R, for sexual content, some nudity, and language. Times guidelines: language, emphatically adult themes and situations; too intense for children.

‘Faithless’

Lena Endre: Marianne

Erland Josephson: Bergman

Krister Henriksson: David

Markus: Thomas Hanzon

Michelle Gylemo: Isabelle

A Samuel Goldwyn Films--Fireworks Pictures release of a SVT Drama production in collaboration with AV Svensk Filmindustri/NRK/Yle/Classic SRL/RAI and ZDF. Director Liv Ullmann. Producer Kaj Larsen. Executive producer Maria Curman. Scriptwriter Ingmar Bergman. Cinematographer Jorgen Persson. Editor Sylvia Ingemarsson. Art director Goran Wassberg. In Swedish, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours, 22 minutes.

Exclusively at the Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 477-5581; Town Center, Bristol at Anton, South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, (714) 751-4184; Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 844-6500.