Scenes from a Marriage

The first scene of Ingmar Bergman’s film, Scenes from a Marriage, elicited boredom from within me. I have enjoyed several of Bergman’s films previously. From the very beginning, Johan and Marianne seemed incompatible. It appears this was a marriage built upon financial dependence. He was possessed more ego as he monopolized the conversations with the interviewer. Marianne was passive, protective, and cautious.

Identity and how it changes when a life long commitment is made in the plot of this film. Johann and Marianne have been married for years. They begin to feel unfulfilled by one another. Their own desires have been swept under the rug for years and the ache of not having them fulfilled becomes unbearable. Johann is the first to take action on these desires as he runs off with a younger woman. Marianne clings to the repetition and safety of their marriage, hoping he will return rather than getting on with her own life.

In The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz depicts the cycle of human relationships. He says, “The woman has an outer image that she tries to project to others, but when she is alone, she has another image of herself.” This is also true for men. He continues, “When a man meets a woman, he makes an image of her from his point of view. Then he tries to make her fit the image he makes for her, and she tries to make him fit the image she makes for him. Their relationship is based on fear; it is based on lies.” We can all judge the outcome of this, which is a disaster. For a relationship to work there must be honesty and unconditional love.

Throughout the film Johan and Marianne suffer from confusion and a fear of intimacy. They are afraid their partners do not understand them. They also need to separate themselves from their new relationships as well as their old one. They are proclaiming a freedom they did not allow themselves before.
Our identity is shaped by how our family, friends, and co-workers view us. It is also shaped by how we view ourselves after taking the external information in and how we assimilate it. I think Johan and Marianne saw themselves in bondage to one another. They were prisoners.

In the scene where Marianne asks Johan to sign the divorce papers, I thought there was hope for her to create a new life for herself, but Johan became violent with her and she reverted back into the childish, dependent woman she once was. He had realized his mistake and was questioning the divorce. She left him in the room to sort it out in his head. They met again in better spirits. They eventually became friends and continued seeing each other behind their new partners’ backs.

Ingmar Bergman’s film is a view of how most modern relationships work. People are now seeking more out of themselves and relationships. They are questioning their own identities on a daily basis. Some people choose to confront their own demons and others choose to fill their emptiness with drugs and alcohol, pornography, and material items. Healthy relationships are few and far between