I'm watching this to get a better grasp at an idea for a play my friend and I are working on, and because it was long overdue.

In the very opening scene, the two are in an interview, while also taking family pictures. I don't know how well-known this is, but the cameraman is played by Bergman himself, and I found it interesting, as he instructed the couple what to look like as he took the photos, and what to do. I'm not familiar with Ingmar Bergman's love life, I'd assume he was in a struggling relationship and that's why he wrote it, but as I said, I'm working on a related project, and I've never even been in a romantic relationship of any kind, so it'd be a little hypocritical to assume the opposite of Bergman. Where I'm going is that I'll play a fool and assume he was recently divorced, he was somewhat saying, by playing an off-camera cameraman, that he wants the two to recount his marriage perfectly.

During the interview, Marianne finds it hard to talk about herself, yet Johan does it with ease. To continue with the Interview, what my Criterion Blu-ray calls it, as they are being interviewed, they are asked to describe themselves. Johan does it easily, all he can do is talk about himself, saying he's smart and handsome (to be fair to him, he says so with an awareness of what he's saying). Marianne, however, has trouble. When describing herself, she tends to talk about how much she loves her husband and her daughters, as though she were a piece of a puzzle, and she is only that when she isn't with her family. When Johan describes her, he says surface-level things, jokingly to try and fill the room, I assume, about her body, her looks, etc.

They expand a bit more on their ideologies if their descriptions didn't already do so. Johan is all about looking out for himself, and maybe the family is not an afterthought, maybe a part of him sees the family as a part of himself, maybe not; he's out for numero uno. Marianne, of course, differs; she wants everyone to get along, she's much more compassionate than Johan; not to say Johan isn't compassionate, or that Marianne isn't selfish at times, they're a bit of a yin and yang.

Marianne is asked by the woman conducting the interview what love is. She can't describe it. In fact, instead of truthfully answering, she quotes the Bible, but even then, she claims how the Bible's interpretation is impossible; that the people who show an example of it are few and far between; I think she is somewhat aware how evasive the answer is, but she doesn't want to admit it.

They have a dinner party of sorts celebrating the magazine article of their interview with another couple, Peter (no relation) and Katarina. These two are the opposite of Johan and Marianne. The two scuffle with each other almost the entire duration of the party, yet they can't escape each other by choice. They're going on a business trip together, and she, Katarina, even admits they somewhat complete each other.

I think it's quite clear that what Bergman wanted to say with the film/series is that marriage is a void, though escapable. All it does is suck the love out of the two participants of the marriage, the prisoners to each other. I don't agree, but how could I even have a horse in the race? I imagine he wanted to say this, probably because he still had grudges against the divorce, of course, this still implies that that was the situation in the first place. When they're out of marriage, they seem to get along well together, as though it were a tangible cage, not just metaphorical, and that's somewhat where I drift off from the message, but damn, the execution. I imagine that's where it really sold me.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but I see it as somewhat ironic, their occupations. Marianne is a family lawyer, specializing in divorce, and Johan seems to be some sort of psychoanalyst, possibly (I assume from the little project he has with his co-worker in the second part of the film). In a way, both of their professions specify in the breaking apart of people's minds, for bugs or shortages of any kind, when they are somehow so oblivious to the bugs and shortages of their own marriage. Once again, could be a stretch.

In one of her appointments with a client, her being a lawyer and all, she talks to a woman wanting a divorce out of a 20-year-long marriage; she seems to see many similarities between the marriage and her own, that's at least what I deduced. Realizing this, she somewhat tries to reason with the woman about the marriage, as though she were reasoning with herself. I mean, if this woman wants a divorce, why shouldn't she?

Sorry that this one was really long, I mean really long, I wasn't anticipating it either, at least not to this extent. Here's my review for the theatrical version I made months ago when I was still fresh to the subject (reviewing, I mean).

"Original" Review: boxd.it/XAcVh