by SARAH ROWLAND

Ingmar Bergman swears that this will be his last film, but who knows? There may still be another one left in the age-defying octogenarian. Saraband feels like a celluloid confession, one that reveals that after more than a half century of dissecting the darkest aspects of family dynamics, the living embodiment of art cinema is no closer to redeeming his absentee father complex.

In this sequel to his crossover hit from the '70s, Scenes From a Marriage, the Swedish auteur reunites the divorced couple that revived his then slumping career.

It's been 30 years since Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann) last saw each other, and, as Marianne explains to the camera, she's been very lonely since she lost touch with both of their daughters - one moved to Australia and the other is so far gone in her mental illness that she no longer recognizes her mother. So, off she goes to surprise her ex at his summer home. There, she meets Johan's son from another relationship, Henrik, and his cello-prodigy daughter Karin - both of whom are still mourning the loss of Henrik's wife. The deluxe chalet soon turns into a house of tension as the widower refocuses all his homeless love onto Karin and her music - suffocating her in the process. This only exacerbates the already-strained father-son relations between Johan and Henrik, and it's not long before Marianne gets roped into the whole mess.

Now, it's no big secret that one of the world's most respected filmmakers sacrificed any meaningful connection with his own offspring for his art. He's admitted in more than one interview that he can remember when he started pre-production on his third feature, but he can't remember when his children were born. Like many of his films, Saraband seems to be a way for Bergman to rub his face in his own inability to make up for lost time. But instead of apologizing for his ineptitude, he seems to be beating himself up by making his alter ego, the 80-year-old Johan, even more of an emotionally stunted bastard than he was when he left Marianne and their children three decades ago. In one particularly brutal onscreen exchange, the pudgy and pathetic Henrik asks his rich miser father for a loan so that he can buy Karin a new cello. Johan takes this opportunity to demean his spineless son, reducing the very old-looking 60-year-old to tears.

Though Bergman's dialogue is still untouchable in scenes like this, there is one aspect of Saraband that is less than perfect: the age difference between Johan and Henrik is distracting at times. They really look more like brothers and, if truth be told, Karin looks more like Henrik's granddaughter. But this is a minor complaint stacked up against the overall picture, which is nothing short of Bergman at his best.

THE FRENCH VERSION OF SARABAND OPENS AT EX-CENTRIS FRIDAY, AUG. 5 AND THE ENGLISH VERSION OPENS AT CINÉMA DU PARC FRIDAY, AUG. 12

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