"I've never been married, but if this is realism, I don't want to ever get married."
Well I do concede this is perhaps not the best film to show a couple who are contemplating marriage. Unless you don't want them to get married!
But of course that is because there is a risk the couple might make the same leap of logic the OP did.
The fact that one couple can be realistically portrayed does not make that portrayal one of all or even your average marriage.
Having made that what should have been obvious point, I think even happily married couples can (and probably do) see this film and recognize dynamics in it.
For example one of the questions I think most viewers have, especially in considering Marianne's POV, is what did she see in him that led her to marry him? I say especially because he in effect is the one who decides to move away from her - this leads one to assume she was happy enough to continue, at least for the time being. So what did she see in him at first, and why did she continue thinking she had an acceptable marriage up until the point he left?
On the surface, I think most would consider Marianne's POV somewhat difficult to understand. She portrays herself as a nice, thoughtful person, and that in her capacities of wife and mother. He on the other hand, from the first interviews in the first part, is cynical, even a bit sarcastic, diffident, rather egotistical - all things that do not appear common to Marianne.
But we later learn that Marianne was married before, to a man who as described sounds like he was more similar to her than Johann. But that one did not work out. Meanwhile Marianne and Johann became friends. And on that friendship was developed what eventually led to their marriage.
In other words Marianne was likely, if subconsciously, looking for someone different from her first husband, and from herself. This in real life is not at all difficult to understand. Many models for how couples should get along assume that the more a couple are alike, the more likely they will get along. And it is true in terms of VALUES, including the political and religious, that conflict over values can lead to real trouble.
But in terms of the emotions and general personality characteristics, I do not think similarities there are a necessity, and for some it is better not to be the same as your partner.
People such as the OP should look at this film as one marriage that leads to a particular set of circumstances, but has certain dynamics shared by many, even if in different ways, different manifestations.
I hope that helps.
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DoobakusBoy
10 years ago
Obviously not all marriages are exactly the same, so there's no way this marriage could represent all marriages. You are right that this point was obvious, and I did not need that explained to me.
My objection is that I don't know ANY people who behave like these two. Yes, there were some elements of their behavior that were recognizable, but on the whole, they carried like themselves like a couple of petulant children--at one moment desperately clinging to each other, and then at the next moment tearing each other apart. They were such gluttons for self-punishment and destruction.
Are there marriages like this? I have no doubt that there are. When you say it's realistic because it's only about ONE marriage and not all, almost anything could happen and it could be considered "realistic". I guess I was expecting something that spoke a little more to the common experience of most marriages. I think I would have gotten more out of this movie if I didn't sense that this marriage wasn't such an outlier. I didn't like this movie because I did not recognize either of these characters as anything like the people I have met out in the real world.
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kenny-164
10 years ago
Doob,
From my perspective I think you are overstating the dynamics in the marriage. It is not literally true that one moment they cling and the next they tear at each other. Nor do I sense they are in effect masochistic.
And my previous post is quite far from saying they are realistic merely because a couple COULD be like them. I rather said most married couples could recognize similar dynamics in their relationship even if the particulars on the surface are different.
In the real world married people struggle with personal differences, with fidelity and lack thereof, with different career challenges, with relations with other family members, and in those that separate or divorce a certain percentage no doubt come to regret that, at least some time. These issues were all explored, and to me that makes the couple not at all an outlier.
You are focusing too much on the surface veneer, I think.
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kenny-164
9 years ago
I want to here circle back to a specific comment in my post from last year on this thread specifically regarding the assertion that one or both are masochistic.
Of course there is the specific meaning of masochism in the physical, sexual context, and we have no evidence of that here. But in a more general sense one must acknowledge that Marianne refers to her masochism in Scene 5 (the scene that occurred in Johan's office). Should we take this statement at face value?
I think not. It is pretty clear to me that Marianne threw that out there as it were to "explain" (meaning explain away) her continued interest in and involvement with Johan, going back one might think to whenever she first had doubts about him. But that's a rather low bar for identifying a person as a masochist. You have a fight with your lover, and you make up and stay with him/her, that makes you a masochist? Of course not.
Instead I think in the specific context Marianne was offering an explanation for continued interest that was not based on love, because primarily she did not wish to say that she loved Johan at that point.
Now she may well have questioned herself, whether her relationship with him was based even if only in part on some desire to pursue self-abasement. In Ullmann's performance her expression was one where in referring to her putative masochism was not as if the thought just came to her out of nowhere. Instead she implies it was something she had thought about before.
But that does not mean she really felt that, or more to the point that one can best understand Marianne's motivations regarding Johan as based on masochism.
Now, perhaps some might claim that an element of self abasement, or self denial, is necessary to being in an involved relationship. Okay. But to term that masochism is a too loose use of the term, I think. When a person is described as motivated by masochism, one is really saying that motivation is primary, not merely that some form of personal sacrifice exists in a whole bundle of other aspects to the relationship and the motivations that go along with it.
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kino66
8 years ago
I didn't like this movie because I did not recognize either of these characters as anything like the people I have met out in the real world.
Well then, maybe Bergman isn't your cup of tea. Bergman films have many characters that I haven't encountered "out in the real world", yet, I find them interesting and worth pondering.
Bergman works on a deep level, his characters verbalize fleeting thoughts & feelings that most people don't bother to (or wouldn't dare to) verbalize. Therefore, IMO, Bergman is both realistic because people often have these thoughts & feelings, but semi-realistic because most people would refrain from verbalizing &/or acting on them.
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