fanny

Over the last 2 nights, I watched the full 5-hour version of Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece of film-making “Fanny and Alexander". It is Bergman’s favourite of his own films, and he says of it “Fanny and Alexander is the sum total of my life as a film-maker”. It contains many of the themes his previous films have explored: life and death, religion, family life, relationship breakdown and the dark side of humanity.

It is a rich and beautiful film, full of wonderful colours and marvellously composed images. It shows two sides to life, and shows it through the eyes of the children the film is named after. It starts with a happy Christmas in a rich, aristocratic family in a small Swedish town. The detail and atmosphere are so well drawn that I felt like I was actually a member of the family present at the party rather than a viewer. We start to see darker undercurrents.

But it soon goes wrong. The father dies and the mother marries the local bishop on the rebound, a truly awful, hard and inflexible man. A battle of wills develops between Alexander and the bishop. The former opulence and happiness have been replaced with austerity and cruel brutality, and the happy family and loving servants have been replaced with the bishops grim family and unsympathetic retainers. There are many moments of genuine high tension.

A dream-like atmosphere pervades the film, and Alexander sees lots of things that might or might not be present - dreams or ghosts? Images of the dead father occur frequently, echoing the ghost of Hamlet’s father which we see in a play. The acting is excellent and we are drawn into this world that Bergman has created to an extent that most film-makers can only imagine being able to achieve.

I can honestly say I have never seen a better film. The 5 hours fly past and there are absolutely no dull moments. Here are two trailers for it, the original Swedish one, and then the American one.

If you lived round the corner, I'd lend you the dvd!

Cheers, Tom.