After a prolonged stint in television, Bergman returned to the big screen with a decidedly dark film even by his standards, fusing such familiar themes as the troubles of marriage, mental illness and death. This intense drama tells the story of two psychiatrists (Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson) bound by the institution of marriage and nothing more, as Ullmann’s tormented psyche gradually envelopes the film’s material reality to reveal a desperately lonely inner world. Featuring what Roger Ebert called “one of the greatest performances in an Ingmar Bergman film,” FACE TO FACE takes the legendary collaboration with Ullmann to bold new heights.

This engaging, brilliantly conceived tale of deceit from one of cinema’s premier illusionists stars Max von Sydow as Dr. Vogler, a 19th-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions, whose magic is put to the test in Stockholm by the cruel, eminently rational royal medical adviser Dr. Vergérus. The result is a diabolically clever battle of wits that’s both frightening and funny, shot in rich, gorgeously gothic black-and-white.

When nurse Bibi Andersson forms a close bond with mute patient Liv Ullmann, the result is a psychic transference between two very troubled women - and a masterpiece by one of the cinema's greatest directors. Bergman's haunting story of mental and emotional breakdown is as audacious in style as it is searing in content. One of the director's most powerful achievements. In Swedish with English subtitles.