Taglines: A woman’s most intimate encounter with the one person she didn’t know. Herself.
Face to Face movie storyline. With her husband Eric at a medical congress in Chicago and their fourteen year old daughter at riding camp for the summer, psychiatrist Dr. Jenny Isaksson has emptied out their old house while their new house is being built, and has moved in with her grandparents in the house in which she grew up, she having temporarily assumed the role of senior physician at a psychiatric hospital filling in for a vacationing colleague.
She is having a casual, meaningless affair with a man named Martin, while she believes that Tomas Jacobi, who she meets at a party, also is making sexual advances toward her. Regardless of if her assumption about Tomas is correct, the two become friends and frequent companions.
In watching her grandmother lovingly take care of her ailing grandfather, remembering back to her childhood with her grandparents, spending time with Tomas, and processing an event associated with one of her more severe cases, that of a young woman named Maria, Jenny, in a fragile mental state, begins to have a nervous breakdown. In a semi-lucid state while conscious, and in semi-consciousness regarding reality when she dreams in her sleep, Jenny may begin to process her fragile mental state, especially if it is better to be alive or dead.
Face to Face (Swedish: Ansikte mot ansikte) is a 1976 Swedish psychological drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. It tells the story of a psychiatrist who is suffering from a mental illness. It stars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It is also the film debut of Lena Olin.
The film was conceived and produced as a four-part mini-series on Swedish television with a running time of 177 minutes. The episodes were entitled:
It was edited down for theatrical releases for running times from 114 to 135 minutes. However, the theatrical version premiered first. The film was later screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival held in May, but was not entered into the main competition. The television version aired in Sweden over four weeks in May and June of that year, and has not been released for home media.
Face to Face (1976)
Directed by: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Aino Taube, Kristina Adolphson, Marianne Aminoff, Helene Friberg, Lena Olin, Göran Stangertz, Birger Malmsten, Jan-Erik Lindqvist
Screenplay by: Ingmar Bergman
Production Design by: Anne Hagegård, Peter Kropenin
Cinematography by: Sven Nykvist
Film Editing by: Siv Lundgren
Makeup Department: Cecilia Drott
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: April 5, 1976
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