Saraband

The breath and depth of Scenes from a Marriage makes the idea of a sequel hard to grasp, but Bergman returns to the topic. The good news is that he reunites the original leading actors. The bad news is that the story does not hold up to the original Ullmann and Josephson, long divorced, reunite but have little shared history since their break up. The film has little to base on about them so it is mostly about secondary characters, Josephson's family mostly. This introduces fresh characters and themes into a story that already has much to it. Bergman doesn't contribute very well to the original characters with this. He borrows old themes from other films and makes a film that exists on the idea that multiple stories is better than one quality story. Bergman is a master dramatist, but even a master had to be dumbfounded about how to write a sequel to such a dense film about a couple who decide to part ways by the end. The sequel had to be about something else to exist. It is that and sadly the results do not impress.