As someone who would call himself a fan of Ingmar Bergman (Persona is one of my all-time favourite films), Scenes from a Marriage is something that I have long been looking forward to and patiently waiting for the right time to watch. It’s not often I find myself in the mood to watch a 5-hour television drama about a marriage falling apart, so I had to wait for the right time. You can imagine my disappointment, then, when my immediate reaction upon finishing it was mostly frustration. Despite its status as an all-time classic, I’m left wondering if Scenes from a Marriage has aged rather poorly for an audience in 2022.
My biggest issue with this miniseries is the characters. If I’m going to watch something five hours long, the vast majority of which is nothing but two characters talking, then either the characters have to be likeable or interesting, or at the least, the dynamic between them does.
Johan and Marianne, the husband and wife whose marriage we witness collapse, do not merely fail to be likeable or interesting; they go above and beyond in their attempts to make me actively dislike them. Johan is significantly worse than Marianne, though. The first episode mostly works to set them up as a couple that, on the surface, have an ideal marriage. They have two daughters, they never argue, and they both lead rather successful lives. In the second episode, a few cracks begin to show. Johan and Marianne argue over the lack of joy in their sex lives. Still, “argue” may be a strong word here because their talk is mostly very civilised and respectful, and neither of them seems unhappy by the end. It’s a fairly slow start so far, merely setting up these characters and giving us some insight into their relationship to make it all the more effective when we see it collapse. You certainly get a sense that the two of them have more come to a truce than found true happiness together, so that collapse does feel inevitable.
Then comes episode three. Johan confesses to Marianne, out of the blue, that he has been having an affair with a 23-year-old woman and is leaving in the morning to be with her for several months. Yes, you read that right. A man in his mid-40s is abandoning his wife and two daughters for a woman 20 years younger than him… and the audience is meant to find that relatable? That was the beginning of the end for me because it was the first of several occasions that Johan would prove himself to be a genuinely repugnant human being.
Marianne is far less contemptible. It’s tough to dislike her at all, actually, as she isn’t exactly a horrible person, and she certainly isn’t as unlikeable as her husband. What she is, though, is pitiful and obsequious: when Johan confesses to his affair and tells her he’s leaving, she is reduced to a grovelling mess who begs him not to leave and asks what she can do. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, and it may even be somewhat expected, but even when Johan hurls insults at her, she does nothing but sit and accept it, often apologising for no reason. It grows painful and frustrating to watch because it takes several episodes for her to stand up for herself.
Bergman claimed Scenes from a Marriage was meant to depict Marianne’s liberation, which makes little sense to me. Marianne is, for the majority of the five hours, nothing but a victim of Johan’s decisions. After episode three, When she eventually does stand up for herself, it feels like too little too late, and it leads to Johan proving himself contemptible once again when he hits her. It is an awkward and clumsy flailing of the arms more than a strike, but he is still the one who escalates to physical violence. She tries to hit him back, but he doubles down and flails his arms once more, this time drawing blood. After they get divorced, the final episode sees Johan and Marianne having an affair together after they’ve both married other people, and they claim they share an imperfect love. If by “imperfect love” they mean a toxic relationship with an abundance of infidelity, manipulation, and abuse, then sure.
Beyond the contemptibility of Johan and the frustration of watching the show treat him as just as much of a victim as Marianne, there are simply not enough poignant moments for a 5-hour miniseries of this nature. I found it weirdly lacking in emotion, even at times when there were heated conversations full of tears and screaming taking place, and that is, I imagine, partly because of how difficult it is to sympathise with the characters.
For me, Scenes from a Marriage has not aged well. When it was initially released, divorce rates shot up in Sweden, suggesting that people found it relatable and saw some of themselves and their situation in the characters. I get the impression, however, that if it were released today, it would be a different story. A man who leaves his wife and daughters for a woman 20 years younger, hits his wife and treats her horribly, and is a serial adulterer is far less relatable today because all of those things are far less acceptable in 2022 than they were in 1973.
Bergman’s comments about Scenes from a Marriage about female liberation seem mostly bizarre today. I did not see much female liberation in a miniseries wherein the female protagonist is, for the majority of the runtime, miserable. She eventually moves on from the man who made her so despondent and sort of rediscovers herself, yes, but she then has an affair with him after getting married to someone else. It makes so little sense. Sure, love doesn’t often make sense, but Johan and Marianne’s relationship simply does not feel believable in 2022, and it certainly isn’t relatable.
Perhaps its age means we should be a little more forgiving of its outdated elements, but I’m not sure. It’s perfectly fine to admit when something hasn’t aged well, and in the case of Scenes from a Marriage, I really don’t think it has. Its influence is undeniable, and we wouldn’t have films like Before Midnight (which, coincidentally, is a much better example of a film about a couple with feminist themes) without it, but that doesn’t mean its status as a classic cannot be questioned and re-examined. Plenty of Bergman’s other works have aged fantastically well, and some of them even deal with feminist themes in a far better way than Scenes from a Marriage does.
Time to watch the 2021 remake and see how they compare…
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