I absolutely agree with your assessment, ladyscarlet18705 and can't for the life of me fathom the low score that this film has garnered.<br /><br />LIV ULMANN and UNDSET have done a marvelous job adapting the novel to the screen. The script is sensational, melding Middle-Age pagan beliefs with an awareness of supernatural powers lording over men's lives, an awareness of the hold unseen forces have over men's lives.<br /><br />The actors, esp. ELIZABETH MATHESON in the title role bring an honesty and such transparency in their performances -- the emotions are raw and heartfelt.<br /><br />SVEN NYKVIST's cinematography is superlative in every sense of the term and it succeeds in making alive even the most inanimate of objects, thus showing us that there may be life in all things. The movie almost seems like a WATERHOUSE painting come alive. It's the height of romanticism for a love story as grand and poignant as the mythical tale of the knight TRISTAN and the maiden ISEULT (ISOLDE).<br /><br />The most important, of course, is how ULMANN was able to show that each action in time will have its repercussions in the future. Each of these characters are bound by fate, by the will of unseen deities, and to a greater degree -- by their own free will, live down the consequences of their choices in life and here, most of these said choices revolve around emotional attachments to a beloved, attachments that may erode in time. Thus, the core of the relationship between two people is examined, and the betrayals and regrets that come once love is gone and a new one has come to take its place are shown to be part of the cycle, the cycle that is love -- a force as synonymous with birth, healing, and life as it is with destruction.