For lovers of foreign art house film, the collaboration between Swedish director
Ingmar Bergman
and Norwegian actress
Liv Ullmann
stands as one of the great cinematic relationships of the 1960s and ‘70s. One can argue how much of an influence their affair brought to their work, but a magic permeates the resulting films, which began with
Persona
(1966) and ended with Bergman’s last film before his death,
Saraband
(2003). Humanity and passion leaps off the screen in these films. Bergman’s understanding of the way two members of the opposite sex relate has hardly ever been equaled, and it came from somewhere very real.
In the documentary/memoir by neophyte filmmaker Dheeraj Akolkar, Liv & Ingmar, Ullmann reads short passages from her 1978 book Changing, answers Akolkar’s unheard questions and offers anecdotes that gradually culminate to reveal an undeniable source for Bergman’s penetrating films: a passionate love affair whose…
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