Although a chamber piece by the great Swedish director, this is more like his films about families, or small groups, such as Through A Glass Darkly and The Passion Of Anna.

Saraband is concerned with characters from Scenes From A Marriage, which I saw many years ago, not in the four hour television version, and appears to be about reconciliation. Marianne (Liv Ullman), divorced for many years from Johan (Erland Josephson), comes to visit him at his summerhouse. He is now a crotchety semi-recluse, although alert, hardly active.

He seems pleased to see her and explains that his estranged son Henrik is living in a cottage with his 19-year-old daughter Karin. He is contemptuous of his son, a failed academic and widower, still suffering petrifying grief over the death of his wife.

Marianne listens to Karin when she comes to the house to tell of her frustration with her father and his obsessive love. Karin and Henrik's relationship is too close. They live together, rehearse and perform together, and even share the same bed, although it's not clear how sexual the relationship actually is. Johan keeps his distance, preferring to let others come to him. He is cold and rich, but clever and discerning.

A crisis arises. Karin must choose between an offer from a friend of Johan's, who is at the Finnish Conservatory, or follow the path set out by her father. Marianne has listened to Henrik's side, too, at first feeling compassion and then distaste, as he reveals the hatred he has for his father.

All except Marianne are suffering debilitating grief for Anna, Karin's mother and Henrik's wife. It is clear Johan had a special fondness for her as an exceptionally loving and kind person. When Karin finds a letter Anna wrote from her deathbed to Henrik, pleading with him not to depend too heavily on Karin, or control her too much with his love, she makes the decision to leave. She has the support of Marianne and Johan, but decides to take a third choice and train as a member of an orchestra, rather than as a soloist, and go to Germany, not Finland.

Henrik breaks down and attempts suicide, shortly after Karin leaves. Johan feels no compassion for him, ridiculing even his suicide effort as a failure. This contempt repels Marianne, who announces she will be going back to Stockholm.

I don't think it's necessary to have seen Scenes From A Marriage, though it helps to understand Johan and Marianne, who are recognizably themselves from the previous film. One of the delights of a Bergman film is seeing familiar faces over and over again - Josephson from films as far back as Hour Of The Wolf and Ullman from Persona. Though there are two unfamiliar faces here, they fit perfectly and Bergman has found a really gifted young actress, Julia Dufvenius, to play Karin. She has the naturalism of Harriet Andersson and the physical strength and power of Ingrid Thulin, with a directness of spirit they all seem to share, just as the male actors have weakness and insecurity at their heart.

It is the women who impart love, forgiveness and acceptance and Karin is the one character they all want to help in their own way. I interpreted this as Bergman's wish to say, let the young go on, we have a duty to help them, despite our disillusionment with life and relationships, or perhaps because of it.

The EIFF notes describe this as a bitter film. I didn't see it that way at all. Marianne says she heard Johan "calling " her and that this is why she came to see him. She is like an angel of mercy, who helps him support Karin, and is not filled with bitterness or disappointment, or, at least, doesn't seem torn between two choices, like Karin is.

I thought Bergman had written a love letter to Anna, the absent person who had loved and understood, describing himself as a perceptive, ruthless egomaniac, self-pitying and self absorbed, but finally with his power and strength, the one who makes things happen.

Though not a great panoramic film, such as Fanny And Alexander, Saraband is notable and characteristic, a chamber play for four characters who speak separately, yet together form a statement Bergman has been making since his early years - despite their acts of cruelty and rejection, human beings are capable of love and forgiveness.