In search of the lost parts – reflections on HBO series “Scenes from a marriage”
It seems to me that it is still brave to tell the story of separation on screen and all the vulnerable, disorganized and somewhat undignified states through which it takes us. It is brave, above all, because it takes us to places that are shrouded in helplessness, shame and guilt, it promises nothing, not even hope, it only tries to capture a part of human experience that we would gladly suppress. Some of the best written quarrels between Mira and Jonathan leave exactly that feeling – a painful escalation in which we are not sure exactly what happened, but we certainly would prefer to forget.
Although there are many differences between Bergman’s and Levi’s versions (which I will not go into in more detail), they both bring this experience of somewhat voyeuristically witnessing the intimate quarrels of two people, while completely believing that they cannot be with each other nor without each other. From the position of an observer, it was easy for me to lean more towards my clinical eye. I could recognize some of the aspects of Mira Levy that could be described as belonging to the spectrum of “borderline”, for example. I could also see Jonathan throwing away his therapeutic change at times (secretly begging him not to do it :)). At the same time, I felt how easy it is, from a shrouded voyeuristic position, to put them on all sorts of assessments and forget that all of us have some of these aspects and that they often come to the light in the moments of separation.
One of the novelties that Hagai Levi introduces in his version is the change in the gender roles of the protagonists. In the marriage of Mira and Jonathan, she has the role of a careerist who is financially doing much better, but who, due to her absence, finds it harder to connect with motherhood.
After all, she is the one who leaves. Although it is really difficult to sympathize with Mira’s decisions at times (even when we understand what alternatives she sees in front of her), the opportunity to look into these forbidden spaces of a female gender role (exp. struggling with motherhood) was precious to me.
During the series, the only constant is the experience that the two of them cannot connect as long as they are within the framework of a marital union, each trapped in the role he/she has chosen for himself. They only somewhat succeed to connect outside of it (but I promised – no spoilers!). The dynamics between the two of them are largely classical and somewhat archetypal: what attracts them to each other at the beginning becomes a stumbling stone later. Mira, from Jonathan’s position, is a “forbidden fruit”. She symbolizes freedom, expansiveness, sexuality and rebellion that he cannot allow himself. Jonathan, from Mira’s position, represents stability, loyalty, rationality and a moral compass that, it seems, she never had in her parents.
Therefore, on Mira’s construct “life passion” vs. “stability” she chooses Jonathan to support what she imagines “stability” is because she needs it at the beginning of the relationship. Unaware of her own self-sabotage, at the beginning of the series she tries to remain consistent and loyal to what she believes she chose by marrying Jonathan. It was a bit tragic to witness the process in which she experiences deep loneliness when faced with the clash between two parts of herself. All along she is convinced that the main battle front is actually somewhere else – between her and her partner. Even if Jonathan wanted to explore his “passionate” side, the question is how much space he would have in relation to Mira – she decided she needs him to be “the stable one”.
Jonathan, on the other hand, is faithful to his role of “rational but emotionally absent” before his therapeutic process. When, much later, Mira reads his morning pages of therapeutic insights, he tells her that through her loss he saw how lonely and incapable he was in that role.
The process that they are co-creating, after almost 10 years of marriage, results in Mira’s departure. She leaves the relationship without realizing that, above all, she wants to leave the version of herself that she became in this marriage. Since the character is not prone to reflection, but is a character who sparks the action in the entire series, she does not resolve her ambivalences – she acts them out. When she says: “If I don’t leave now, I will never leave”, it is really a dead end alternative and the maximum of her capacities for introspection at that moment. What eludes her is that the search she is embarking on is not primarily a search for a new partner, but a search for fragmented parts of herself that she is trying to integrate.
In one interview, Hagai Levy joked that the solution that this couple found for the issue of reconnection and reconstruction in their own relationship was originally “Bergman’s invention” and that Bergman himself probably practiced it often. 🙂 Although each of the characters undergoes a personal transformation and although they manage to regain curiosity, playfulness and passion in their relationship, their connection remains unintegrated with the rest of their lives. So the series leaves us with the bittersweet feeling of Jonathan’s replica which was unfortunately dropped from the final cut: “Isn’t it tragic that now we know all this we couldn’t know before, but we can only apply it to our new spouses? ” And it is, Jonathan, it is tragic and life is often like that.