Scenes from a marriage

Originally shot for Swedish television,Scènes de la vie conjugale (Scener ur ett äktenskap) was adapted for the screen by Bergman in 1973. The film follows the ten-year marriage of Johan, a university professor, and Marianne, a lawyer specializing in family law. Through successive encounters, marking the turning points and the collapse of their relationship, a portrait emerges of a couple whose outcome seems inextricable - gradually unable to be together, but equally unable to separate. First adapted in 2023, Markus Öhrn takes up Scènes de la vie conjugale again, in a completely new version, this time with a French cast. It's an opportunity to reread Bergman's fable in the light of the domestic violence - physical and psychological - that arises in the secrecy and confines of many couples. To do this, the director transposes Bergman's film into an Ubuesque universe, refusing all forms of realism. Amid the stripped walls of a "white box", dressed in grotesque masks, Johan and Marianne become the avatars of a cruel and ridiculous game that evokes both the Grand-Guignol tradition and the saturated violence of certain cartoons. This uninhibited violence, willingly excessive and caricatured, is held up to the audience like a distorting mirror - a probable reflection of our own repressed impulses, or simply hidden behind social masquerade.