From the Life of the Marionettes

From the Life of the Marionettes (Aus dem Leben der Marionetten, 1980) is an Ingmar Bergman drama you can watch online on iFILM. It opens with a murder, then circles back to ask how a man got there.

Peter is a wealthy businessman; his wife Marianne designs fashion that sells. From the outside their marriage looks enviable — money, status, mutual devotion. Behind the door it runs on contempt, helplessness and a slow-burning rage. Cornered and unheard, Peter keeps returning to one violent thought, and eventually he acts on it.

Bergman shot the film in Munich during his self-imposed exile from Sweden, in German, with a largely black-and-white palette broken only by color bookends. Robert Atzorn and Christine Buchegger play two people who stopped listening to each other years ago. This is late, clinical Bergman — a marriage dissected without comfort, best for viewers who want the autopsy, not the romance. Stream From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) online on iFILM.