Autumn sonata mother daughter series#

Before moving in with her sister and brother-in-law, she lived in a home where Charlotte had placed her, and Charlotte, who can’t bear to look at her suffering child, clearly wishes that she had stayed there. “Or else you never bothered to read it,” Eva replies.) Helena suffers from a degenerative disease that leaves her confined to a bed or wheelchair and scarcely able to speak. (Eva wrote to her about it at the time, but Charlotte says that she never received the letter. Much to her surprise - “alarm” might be a more accurate word - she discovers that her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), has been living with Eva and Viktor for the past two years. Eva thought things would be different between them now that she’s an adult, but her mother is as overwhelming as ever.Ĭharlotte also comes to regret her visit almost immediately.

Autumn sonata mother daughter series#

If Eva says that she hosted a musical evening for her husband’s parishioners, Charlotte has to talk about the series of concerts she performed for thousands of Los Angeles schoolchildren if Eva plays a Chopin prelude on the piano, Charlotte has to play the same piece more skillfully, critiquing her daughter’s interpretation all the while she can’t even discuss Leonardo’s death without noting that he was happy about her success. However, it’s not long before Charlotte’s vanity and self-absorption put a damper on Eva’s mood. When Charlotte arrives, it seems that Eva’s worries were unfounded, as mother and daughter greet each other with joy. The letter has a touch of desperation about it, with lines such as “Please don’t say no right away.” It reveals, too, that she hasn’t seen her mother in nearly seven years, and although Eva is a journalist and the author of two books, she anxiously asks Viktor if he’s certain that it sounds all right. Upon receiving this news, she writes her mother a letter, inviting her to visit the country parsonage where she lives with her clergyman husband, Viktor (Halvar Björk). For example, Eva doesn’t learn of the recent death of her mother’s longtime lover, Leonardo (Georg Løkkeberg), from Charlotte herself she only finds out about it during a chance encounter with a mutual acquaintance. It’s as if the umbilical cord had never been cut.”Įven before concert pianist Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) makes her first appearance in Ingmar Bergman’s 1978 film Autumn Sonata, it’s evident that her relationship with her daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann) is less than ideal.

The mother’s unhappiness will be the daughter’s unhappiness. The mother’s failures are paid for by the daughter. The mother’s injuries are handed down to the daughter. Everything is possible and is done in the name of love and solicitude. “A mother and a daughter - what a terrible combination of feelings and confusion and destruction.