Liv & Ingmar: Painfully Connected is a moving documentary about the relationship between Liv Ullman and Ingmar Bergman. But although it takes the form of a spontaneous interview-like monologue spoken by Ullman, interspersed with very short excerpts from her Bergman films and a little prior documentary footage with Bergman, it is actually a scripted theatrical performance, and a remarkable one, because it is reality, dramatized, with the actress playing herself.
And the metaphor is apt, and doubly self-referental, because so many of the unforgettable roles Ullman had played for Bergman in their films were in fact reflections of their intense but troubled relationship and their respective demons.
The more troubled one was clearly Ingmar. But he remains the revered eminence in the wings. Only Ullman has her say, which is affectionate, loyal and admiring throughout.
Yet one has the occasional feeling during Ullman’s extremely insightful and moving performance, that some of it may be art rather than actuality: high art, creative, going beyond merely being “my Stradivarius,” the instrumental role her ‘Pingmar’ accorded her, as she relates with apparent pride and gratitude.
But perhaps they both understood their symbiosis best. Maybe Ullman’s roles and scripts — she refused many that did not fit — inspired her performances the way Schiller’s poems inspired Schubert’s songs.
Yet surely she was both the player and the instrument, even if Bergman composed the score. What he might have meant was something closer to the way knowing he has such a “Stradivarius” to play on inspires the playwright too.
The playwright/film-maker is left mostly to our imagination in this film, apart from letting us know that he was a tormented genius, driven to seclusiveness, jealousy, and even psychological and physical violence. But we cannot discern what made him that way. Unlike Ullman, Bergman was far too private ever to make such a “documentary” about himself. What he had to say, he said in his own films, much of it through his “Stradivarius.”
Her art was cathartic for her, but perhaps his was less so, for him. Yes, they were painfully connected; but one has a feeling that despite her unquestionable loyalty and lifelong devotion, most of the pain was his (though probably little or no fault of hers).