An extraordinary performance by Liv Ullman is the complete and utter focus of director Ingmar Bergman’s dour, challenging vision of Jenny Isaksson, a woman undergoing a nervous breakdown.
A trained psychiatrist, Jenny temporarily moves into her grandmother’s Stockholm apartment. With her husband, also a psychiatrist, on an extended tour of the US, and the couple having sold their house, Jenny has taken on the role of senior physician at a psychiatric hospital filling in for a vacationing colleague. She befriends Tomas (Erland Josephson) but Ullman’s fragile state of mind, disconnected from the world around her, slowly breaks down. Drifting through consciousness, semi-lucid when dreaming, it’s a tour de force emotional devastation with Ullman rarely off screen.
Nominated for 2 Oscars in 1977 (best actress & director).
Rating: 68%
Director: Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal)
Writer: Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal)
Main cast: Liv Ullman (Cries & Whispers,The Emigrants), Erland Josephson (Cries & Whispers, Fanny & Alexander), Aino Taub (Walpurgis Night, Secrets of Women)
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