The Touch

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eric b Director Ingmar Bergman made only two English-language films, "The Touch" (1971) and "The Serpent's Eye" (1977). Neither are well-regarded, and this doesn't seem coincidental. The dialogue in "The Touch" is uncomfortably stiff, and even the otherwise garrulous Elliott Gould sounds awkward delivering it. And his character is a mess. He's ridiculously brutal and tempestuous in some scenes, and unnaturally restrained in the rest. Essentially a three-character film, "The Touch" follows an affair between Gould and beautiful Bibi Andersson, while her academic husband (Max Von Sydow) seems too wrapped up in work to notice. Andersson doesn't seem compatible with either man, and there's little reason to root for either pairing to win out. Even the cinematography and score aren't up to Bergman's usual standards. Bedroom scenes bring good news and bad news: Andersson's perfect breasts and Gould's furry back. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A flawed and lifeless picture that rarely showcases what made Bergman Bergman. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Audience Member “The Touch” by Ingmar Bergman (1971) is a film about how the very experience of personal love can heal emotional trauma. Lover as a psychotherapist is not an easy role - in passionate love there is not enough distance for disinterested observation and understanding. But Karin (Bibi Andersson) is able to do the impossible – she transforms the very area of love between two into a magic point of sharing wisdom through her enduring and inexhaustible vulnerability. Her love toward her younger partner in existential encounter is a model of psychological wholeness – it includes romantic, sexual, motherly, purely emotional and intellectual aspects in tune with one another. Bergman demonstrates that sometimes separation of lovers is a victory of love, not a defeat. “The Touch” is Bergman’s “Hiroshima Mon Amour” – another film about personal love as psychotherapy. After finishing watching this film you again and again return to the meaning of the characters’ actions and emotions and the film’s visual symbolism, and understand more about their personalities and human life as an incredibly rich and beautiful philosophical drama. Please, visit www.actingpitpolitics to read articles about Bergman’s “Through Glass Darkly” (with analysis of shots from the film), and also analysis of films by Godard, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Alain Tanner, Resnais, Pasolini, Cavani, Bertolucci and Fassbinder. BY Victor Enyutin Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member <a></a> <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/stills/7439/original.jpg?1289446646" width="240" border="0" /> Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Bergman hated this film, and it's not hard to see why. A bland, empty melodrama with only a few signs of the master's touch. Gould is clearly in way over his head. It's not all his fault; the script is stiff and lifeless, and seems to struggle with the language. I thought the symbolism of the Virgin Mary statue was WAY too blunt, but perhaps I missed some element of subtlety. The cinematography is serviceable but unremarkable. A generally unpleasant and mindless film, although not unbearable. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member It's the story of a married woman falling in love with another man. The married couple - Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson - does live in fine rapport, their personalities matching well. Both are quiet, contemplative, and very rational persons, not liable to act spontaneous. The intruder - Elliott Gould - on the idyll which they embody together with their teenaged daughter is in contrast an impetuous man, uncompromising, overbearing, and tormented by inner contradictions and compulsions. Andersson tells him at one point that he hates himself. The two clandestine lovers aren't appropriate for each other. They have difficulties to accept the other's social behaviour and stance and don't like it to lie to their environments. But soon they cannot live without each other anymore. The point of the film cannot be to show how two contrary characters complement each other, as Andersson was even more happy with von Sydow before and because it's all told in such a detached manner. The portrait of a love would like to involve the spectators to convey the joy and pain of it. Instead the question why Andersson turns away from von Sydow toward Gould seems intentionally perplexing. The dialogues and acting of the lovers is cerebral and cold, as if they were reciting dazedly on a stage, astounding themselves with their actions and feelings. As if they were actuating on an impulse isolate from their personalities. This impulse or drive is not eros, as especially at the beginning of their affaire sex is more a problem than a fulfilment to these two diffident lovers. Maybe love or the need to feel and give love is itself such a drive, an autonomous thing asserting itself regardless of the circumstances and the characters involved. The central metaphor of the film is a medieval wooden statue of Mary, recently excavated after being buried for centuries - like Gould's and Andersson's potential to be lovers or man and woman. But with the disinterment of the Mary there also come alive insect larvae inside her, corroding her from within. Before they meet Gould attempted suicide and Andersson was reduced to a wife. They flower in their new love and it destroys their lives. Civilization means in many ways the domestication of our impulses. Therefore Andersson realizes that she must not harm lastingly her family and Gould's hidden wife/sister. This is true. But Gould is telling her that she is lying to herself by not eloping with him and he's right, too. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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