Dir. Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1982, 188 mins
Cast: Gunn Wallgren, Pernilla Allwin, Bertil Guve, Ewa Froling
Review by Carol Allen
The Oscar winning 'FANNY & ALEXANDER (it won four in 1984) is a rich tapestry of one year in the life of a large and well-to-do theatrical family living in a Swedish provincial town (Uppsala, the city where Bergman was born), at the turn of the century. The central characters are two young children, 8-year-old Fanny (PERNILLA ALLWIN) and 10 year old Alexander (BERTIL GUVE), whose lives are turned upside down when their father dies and their mother, Emilie Ekdahl, (EWA FROLING), falls for the icy charms of the puritanical local Bishop.
Much to the concern of their grandmother Helena Ekdahl (GUNN WALLGREN), the children are mistreated under the Bishop's strict regime and Emilie is powerless to act. But the childrens' rescue comes in the form of an old family friend, in whose magical and mysterious emporium Alexander encounters the supernatural forces, which contribute to the family's eventual reunion.
When I first saw the film on release, I was im press ed by the rich beauty of the first hour, which introduces the characters against the setting of a loving, old fashioned family Christmas, although I did find it a bit long drawn out and hard work, in terms of coming to grips with working out who was who amongst the plethora of characters. Once you've got that sorted however it is superb. The child actors who play the title characters are delightful - Fanny self possessed and pragmatic, Alexander withdrawn, imaginative and living in a world of fantasy, into which he further retreats when his mother remarries. The contrast between the warm, rather Chekovian gaiety of their upbringing (the film's set in 1907) and the "spare the rod and spoil the child" world in which they then find themselves is starkly dramatic, with the latter having the visual feel of Cinderella set inside a chilly Dutch master painting. Some of the film's memorable highlights include a wonderful central performance from Wallgren; the chillingly inhuman wails of the mother's grief at the death of her first husband, heard through her childrens' ears; a Rabelaisian love triangle involving one of the sons, his children's nurse and his comfortably complaisant wife and some spooky speculations on the nature of subjective and objective reality.
Ingmar Bergman described the film as "a declaration of love of life. My friend Kjell Grede - he too is a director - once said to me 'you, who find life so wonderfully rich and entertaining, why do you make such serious, de press ing, black films? Why don't you make films showing how much you love and enjoy life?' This I have done. It has its sombre moments, but if you have no dark passages you cannot see the lighter side, the contrasts."
Ingmar Bergman was born on July 14, 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden. His father was a clergyman and later became chaplain to the King in Stockholm. Ingmar Bergman is the most well-known and acclaimed Swedish director since Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjöström. He started his career working with the University theatre and throughout always kept coming back to the stage, between his filmmaking.
Ingmar Bergman first worked in films in 1940 as a screenwriter at Svensk Filmindustri. After a while he began both directing and writing his own scripts. In 1969 he formed his own production company, Cinematograph, and after than often also produced his own films.
Bergman has won many Academy Awards. THE VIRGIN SPRING, THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY and CRIES AND WHISPERS all won the Best Foreign Film Award. Bergman won the Best Director Award for the films CRIES AND WHISPERS and FACE TO FACE and he received two more Oscars in the capacity of best Scriptwriter for the films WILD STRAWBERRIES and THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY. FANNY AND ALEXANDER's four Oscars were for Best Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design and Best Foreign Language Film.
In tribute to the late Ingmar Bergman the film is being screened daily from Friday 10th August to Thursday 24th August at 5pm at:
RENOIR CINEMA
Brunswick Centre, London WC1N
The Artificial Eye DVD of FANNY AND ALEXANDER is available from retailers.
Catalogue Number: ART 013DVD/ BBFC:15 / SRP: £24.99
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