Challenging time, age and power relations: The child figure in Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata

This article is an interdisciplinary study of the figure of the child in Ingmar Bergman’s Höstsonaten ( Autumn Sonata ) (1978), using theoretical perspectives from childhood studies within a cinema studies framing. By analysing the shifting roles of mother and daughter in this seldom-discussed film, the article demonstrates the on-screen child figure’s capacity to challenge society’s deep-rooted ideas of ‘child’ and ‘adult’, respectively, thereby exposing the inconstant nature of age categories. Drawing on contemporary childhood studies, I argue, using Autumn Sonata as an example, that the child figure in cinema bears a subversive potential for questioning power relations between generations as well as defying a chrononormative notion of time and age. This reading contributes to a deepened awareness of the function of the on-screen child figure, not least transferable to Bergman’s cinematic work. It also sheds light on the mutable connections between fictional children and central conceptions of childhood in contemporary society.