A love affair as enigmatic as their films
The love affair and decades-long friendship between the late, great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and the Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann was tough, maddening, invigorating, loving, painful and ultimately inscrutable. Much like an Ingmar Bergman film. They met during the making of “Persona” (1966), one of the great experimental film puzzles of all time, but after hearing Ullmann’s side of their relationship in the fascinating and lyrical new documentary “Liv & Ingmar,” “Persona” is easy to figure out next to the real thing.
It would make sense if “Liv & Ingmar” were directed by Bergman fanatic Woody Allen, or Norwegian master Jan Troell. Or even Ullmann herself, who has been known to direct a film or two (her version of August Strindberg’s “Miss Julie,” starring Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton, is set to debut this year).
Instead, it was made by a young Indian-born director, Dheeraj Akolkar. What he does here is very interesting: He was able to get Ullmann to tell her story at the house she and Bergman shared on Faro Island — a place where she was often a prisoner, forbidden to leave by Bergman. Akolkar then illustrates Ullmann’s interview with scenes from the dozen movies they made together (“The Passion of Anna,” “Cries and Whispers,” “Scenes from a Marriage”) — clips which uncannily depict their relationship (it’s wellknown Bergman was a very personal filmmaker).
“A lot of the credit goes to her,” Akolkar, 35, said by phone from his home in London. “She said, ‘You’re 73 years old, you meet a stranger; he’s a whole different generation from yours, speaks a different language, comes from a different culture. And he also extended his hand. Sometimes you should take that hand and jump.’
“In fact, I reminded her of this, I called her on her birthday (on Dec. 16) and I said ‘Thank you for holding my hand.’ ”
Akolkar speculates Ullmann might have accepted his offer precisely because he is an outsider. The Ullmann-Bergman relationship was a scandal at the time. She was 25, he was 47, and they both left marriages for each other and had a child out of wedlock. This is only about a decade and a half after the similar Ingrid Bergman-Roberto Rossellini scandal prompted a scolding from none other than the United States Senate.
When Ingmar Bergman died in 2007 at age 89, the priest officiating the funeral would not allow Ullmann to walk behind the coffin. This despite her being the last person to see Bergman alive, to be in the last frame of the last Bergman film, and the only one allowed to direct a Bergman script after his official retirement from feature filmmaking.
Being an outsider, Akolkar brings a fresher perspective to the relationship. But why did he want to make it?
“Because I have loved like this,” Akolkar said. “I know what it’s like to still feel like you care for someone from thousands of miles away. There was a person in my life, she and I are the best of friends, but we are not in a relationship anymore. In Liv’s book (“Changing,” her 1976 memoir), she writes how she picked up Ingmar from the airport and he told her his mother had died, and he was vulnerable like a child in the car. And she writes, ‘I knew I could never leave him, and in a way I never have.’ I think that knowledge is something I’ve experienced myself. I don’t have to justify to anybody — I know I love. It’s very personal for me on that level.”
Akolkar, whose favorite Bergman-Ullmann collaboration is “Shame,” said his biggest revelation while making “Liv & Ingmar” is how much humor informs her persona.
“You associate her with very neurotic characters,” he said. “The biggest surprise was how funny she is. … She was pulling practical jokes all the time — even on me. She can crack silly jokes and giggle like a child. You don’t associate legends with such things, do you?”