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Ingmar Bergman was never a person who had much time for his family, yet there’s something about the way in which he captures family dynamics onscreen that makes for something wholly entrancing. Of course, a perfect example of this would be his theatrical swan song Fanny & Alexander, but there’s a deeply personal touch in Autumn Sonata that also makes said film worth noting. It’s a film that tells of even Bergman’s own dedication to something that he loves most – at the expense of another important building block of his own life. Perhaps often noted for being the first time in which cinema’s most famous Bergmans – Ingmar and Ingrid – had finally come together, Autumn Sonata is a film that puts into question even the very extent to which we fixate our lives on something that we love doing most with our life and what happens when the damage can only become ever so severe. But most admirable about the way in which he approaches such a subject is his own intimacy – something always present in the way Bergman directs his actors. But Bergman has always made his own company as an artist clear, for he interacts with his recurring collaborators just as he would with friends, and it always makes for a rewarding journey.

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