A Song for Martin

A Song for Martin tells the story of two people late in life who find sudden, delirious love, and then lose it in one of the most painful ways possible — to Alzheimer’s disease. Barbara (Viveka Seldahl), a concert violinist, and Martin (Sven Wollter), a world-famous conductor and composer, meet for the first time when both are middle-aged and married to others. They fall profoundly in love and soon divorce their spouses, marry, and settle down to a joyful shared life and musical partnership. The signs of Martin’s Alzheimer’s disease are at first isolated, but their progression is relentless. Director Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror, The House of the Spirits) charts, with harrowing candour and sensitivity, Martin’s increasing confusion and isolation along with Barbara’s desperate struggle to adjust to each sad new stage in his decline. But it is the sublime performances of Wollter and Seldahl that are most remarkable here. Their achievement is made even more poignant by the knowledge that the couple were married in real life and that Seldahl died of cancer shortly after the film was finished. “A work of deep compassion and lacerating sadness” (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune). Colour, 35mm, in Swedish with English subtitles. 118 mins.

Post-screening discussion with Dr. Michael Wilkins-Ho, a geriatric psychiatrist and consultant at Vancouver General Hospital and Vancouver Community Older Adult Mental Health Services. Dr. Wilkins-Ho is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Psychiatry.

Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.