Scenes From A Marriage (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #52 extract: Scenes From A Marriage (1973)

I'm not married, but I think I know a little bit about love, and it seems Bergman says almost all there is to be said about it, constructing a film about an unconditional love that is made to weather the most torrential and unending of storms. Is this true love? Is this married life? 

Certainly Scenes From A Marriage cannot be boiled down to just this, but it seems that love, to Bergman, is not tangible, is not an emotion, is not an action, but an accumulation of memory. Love is shared. But, simultaneously, love is lost upon people; if love is true, it seems you can never know it fully, never grip it, sort your life out around it, or even constructively talk about it. They say communication is the most important thing in relationships. For Bergman, communication destroys love, builds love, questions love and tests love. Love is between and beyond two people, ventured towards and through with words of spite and warmth and upon feet that always seem to know where they're going despite the fact that the mind whirls in ceaseless unknowing. A masterpiece and a must-see.