For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I had the opportunity to watch it with the Istanbul Film Festival. I felt lucky to have watched this classic movie in the cinema. There are many details about the movie. First you are confronted with an incredible drama film. I'm sure your eyes will be full while you watch. I think that everyone has a scenario where they can find a piece from themselves. The movie players are playing incredibly. Your mouth will remain open. I want to congratulate Liv and Ingrid once more. You have to watch this movie, which is composed of sadness, love, pain, lack of communication and hope. By the way, it was Bergman's first film I watched. Sometimes the value of some things can be understood later. We need to know the value of our family now. We should not regret it later. I want to finish this masterpiece's critique with a line I like very much. "I will never let you vanish out of my life again. I'm going to persist. I won't give up, even if it is too late. I don't think it is too late. It must not be too late."

Ingmar Bergman's "Autumn Sonata" (1978) is truly one the best dramatic performances that I have ever seen. This is definitely not for those enamoured of typical "brain dead" Hollywood films, but is surely for the viewer who can appreciate much more intelligent fare. It is a "thinking person's" film.Autumn Sonata can surely be compared to the proverbial onion that is peeled back layer by layer until one reaches its essential core. The joyful reunion between mother (Ingrid Bergman) and daughter (Liv Ullman) is gradually revealed to be a very superficial, very polite, and very civilized layer of a bitter, and even desperate core relationship that exists between them. In the course of traversing these existential layers of Social Reality, the writer, through elegant imagery, and philosophical overtones embedded in the dialogue takes the viewer through the essential past events that have transpired to create this most complex of mother-daughter relationships.The role that is given to Ingrid here truly plays, in my opinion, to her greatest strength as an actor, that of being able to deliver a convincing transformation of personality and emotion in the course of a film, and often in the course of a single scene. Her genius for being able to do so shines most brightly in her earliest Swedish films, before she relocated to Hollywood, where the contrived status given to her as a "sex symbol" most often neglected the depths of her acting ability. Now back in her native Scandinavia late in her career, Ingrid is given an opportunity to once again shine forth her brilliance by a writer/director who truly understands the breadth and the depth of what she can do in front of a camera. Liv, an already accomplished actor in her own right before this film, is nonetheless allowing Ingrid, by necessity, to take the lead in successfully passing through the emotional, visceral, and mental gymnastics needed to execute her own role in this film, which she does far more than adequately.The saddest aspect of this film for me is that rarely does an adult child ever reach such a meeting of the mind, and of emotion with a parent over supposedly inflicted childhood traumas. Most people see their parents go to the grave before they can express the honest feelings and thoughts expressed by the adult daughter to her mother in this film. In a very ironic way then, beyond the core "ugliness" in the relationship between the mother and daughter in Autumn Sonata lies a type of idealism, an idealism that we can one day transcend the traumas of our past, and thereby fulfill our full human potential. The daughter's conciliatory letter to her mother at the end of a film is the first step of her now renewed journey to reach that personal fulfillment.20 Stars !!! 20 Stars !!! 20 Stars !!!

I catch a Bergman movie anytime I can, I've loved all I've seen so far (Jungfrukällan, Nattvardsgästerna, Vargtimmen, Det Sjunde Inseglet). This - even tho good - was maybe the least favorite so far.I had zero knowledge of this movie before seeing it, a perfect way to see a movie, I only knew it was a Bergman movie which of course sets a certain expectation.The acting is quite good. I was quite impressed by Ingrid Bergmans performance (it actually took me a while to figure out it was her). Ullman's performance in my opinion is a bit over the top and she doesn't quite fit the role. She felt like a warm and kind loving wife rather than a woman not capable of loving due to unhappy childhood. I didn't find her believable in the role she was put in. She looked way too content with herself for a woman holding so much anger, sadness and suppressed feelings. Her performance has been praised, but even the key scene when she looks at her mother play the piano felt somehow awkward to me. Maybe I need to watch the movie again.Since I knew nothing about the movie beforehand, I felt at times that the movie took quite drastic turns. I don't know if it was structured as well as it could've been. Things came out unexpectedly - which may have been intentional also.I also wasn't too sure that the sick sister was a necessary character here. The scenes with her are quite sparse and she's left undeveloped as a character and her part in the whole was left a bit of a mystery. I also wasn't sure why it was implied that her sickness was caused by her mothers actions, that felt quite far fetched since her condition was clearly not (only) psychological, but rather neurological.The whole movie was a bit like watching a train wreck, it's not exactly fun watching tormented characters. Which leaves me to think what the purpose of this movie was. It's nevertheless a strong drama, but it left me mostly just feeling sad. I don't know if it would be wise to see this movie again and look for symbolic stuff that I've found in Bergmans other movies, they've felt deeper and more meaningful than this. I was left wondering if the fact that Ullmann's characters son died by drowning carried a more deeper meaning, because it was revealed at a certain point in the movie. Maybe I was just overwhelmed by the drama and couldn't see deeper, but I didn't find a true meaning in this movie, other than purification of some sort.

"Autumn Sonata" is probably the most emotionally draining and exhausting film I've ever seen. It stars Liv and Ingrid Bergman in what must be described as a tour de force for both women. Ingmar Bergman here studies the complex relationship between a mother and daughter, and it's something that many of us can relate to.The lovely Eva (Ullmann), here a plain parson's wife, invites her recently widowed (perhaps by a second husband) mother Charlotte (Bergman) to visit. When her mother arrives, we see immediately that Charlotte is a vibrant, glamorous woman with a busy life - very different from her daughter. When Eva mentions that her handicapped sister Lena, removed from a care facility, is now living with her and her husband, Charlotte freezes up. It's obvious that she wouldn't be there had she known. When Eva speaks of her dead son, who drowned as a small boy, Charlotte says that during that time, she was recording the Mozart sonatas. She is uncomfortable when Eva tells her that her little boy Erik is still with her in spirit.Bottom line: Charlotte is a self-involved, cold woman who gave birth to a mediocre daughter and a sick one, and she'd rather forget the whole thing. Eva, of course, keeps trying to win her mother's love. Finally, one night, the two have it out in a long, stunning series of scenes that leave the viewer gasping for air.This is one of the most brilliant films I have ever seen, with performances unsurpassed by anyone. Both Ullmann and Bergman give amazing portrayals of complex women with a difficult history between them. Ingrid Bergman was such a great treasure, and here she caps off her prolific, wonderful film career with her finest work. Ullmann again proves why she is a favorite actress of Bergman - her face pinched and pained, holding herself together with a paper clip as she sobs that her mother could never accept her as she was, a woman living with the pain of just not being good enough.What is it about these Swedish actresses - Garbo, Ullmann, Bergman - that they can plunge such a dagger in the heart - is it something in their culture that allows such depth of emotion - I don't know. I just know I'll never forget the impact of this amazing film.