An aging director (Erland Josephson) recalls a love affair many years ago that resulted in a broken marriage.

After turning another script by Ingmar Bergman into a miniseries, Private Confessions (1996), Liv Ullmann made this searing drama that largely plays out in the past. The romance had severe consequences then and continues to haunt the old man in the shape of a specter, or perhaps a figment of his imagination, who still looks the same decades later.

Uninspired directing at times, but Lena Endre is brilliant and it’s ultimately impossible to resist the emotional pull of this dark depiction of infidelity.

2000-Sweden-Norway-Finland-Italy-Germany. 154 min. Color. Directed by Liv Ullmann. Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman. Cast: Lena Endre (Marianne), Erland Josephson (Bergman), Krister Henriksson (David), Thomas Hanzon, Michelle Gylemo, Juni Dahr, Philip Zandén, Marie Richardson, Stina Ekblad, Johan Rabaeus, Jan-Olof Strandberg, Björn Granath. 

Trivia: Original title: Trolösa. Remade as a miniseries, Faithless (2025).

Last word: “At first I felt this wasn’t a subject I would have wanted to make a movie about. It’s so dark and it lacks forgiveness. The first year when [Bergman and I] were working on the storyboard was difficult. I said to him, ‘ll do the shooting in the studio but you can do the pre-production and the post-production because it’s so personal.’ He didn’t want that. I said then that it was my film and it would have to be my vision. He said that was what he wanted.” (Ullmann, BFI)