Face to Face

Jenny is a psychiatrist. Her family has moved out for the summer and she will stay a while in her grandparents' house; this is where she grew up two generations back. She goes to work, sees her patients, comes home in the evening. Then something begins to break. Sleep goes, images come in daylight, and a fear from her own childhood returns. One night she attempts suicide. The next section takes place in a hospital room, and the narrative opens up what happened through the patient's own account. Ingmar Bergman writes and directs. Liv Ullmann plays Jenny. The film was first made as a four part series for Swedish television and was cut and re-edited for cinema. Liv Ullmann was nominated for the Oscar for best actress for the part, and Bergman was nominated as director. The subject is the distance between a profession and an illness; the person expected to heal others cannot name her own condition. Bergman does not separate dream from reality; which is which is deliberately left uncertain in some scenes. Sven Nykvist's photography rests on the face; the film consists largely of close shots. The director said in later years that he was not satisfied with it and found the structure too explanatory. Who it is for: viewers who like Bergman and psychological drama. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, the suicide scene is direct, and the second half is tiring.