Ansikte mot ansikte (Face to face)

Liv Ullmann gives a devastating performance in Bergman’s wrenching portrait of a woman on the brink of collapse. A successful psychiatrist, Ullmann’s character seems to have it all: a rewarding career, a (vaguely) loving husband, and even a (somewhat tepid) lover on the side, but nightmares are beginning to seep into her sleep and soon come to dominate her entire life. About this moving study of madness and “the essential loneliness of people who try to lead honest, independent lives” (Variety), Bergman said: “Regard it as a surgeon’s scalpel. Not everyone will welcome it.”