Fanny and Alexander

Grade: A

Intended as legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s final film, the three-hour-plus Fanny and Alexander encompasses his entire body of work — fantasy and reality; coming-of-age and death; stunning visuals and stark minimalism; spirituality and magic. It’s sprawling, it’s intimate, it’s befuddling, it’s magnificent. A few more notes on Fanny and Alexander:

Directing:

Bergman’s style changes throughout Fanny and Alexander, perfectly reflecting the joy, fear and wonderment of the titular children as their circumstances continually shift. The opening stanza is warm and full of vivid colors during the Ekdahl family’s lengthy Christmas Eve celebration. But after the death of Fanny and Alexander’s father, their mother marries a stern authoritarian bishop, and the new home is cold and devoid of decoration as the children live in constant fear of the bishop’s abuse. The concluding hour sees the children finally rescued and reunited with their old family, which Bergman explains through surrealism and dreamlike leaps in logic. At every turn, the visuals and variety of emotions engross us completely.

Acting:

Bertil Guve is the child actor who plays Alexander. We see the world through his eyes, and what expressive eyes they are — able to capture love, terror, amazement and confusion with just a glance. And even though the story is told mostly through his point of view, the colorful ensemble cast is what gives the film life. There are over 20 characters given ample screen time, and every single one of them is memorable (but none more memorable than Bishop Edvard Vergérus, played by Jan Malmsjö, whose draconian personality is the stuff of nightmares).

Writing:

Fanny and Alexander is told like a sprawling 19^th century Russian novel by Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, with events taking place over several years. Sequences are long and drawn out and establish a mood — this isn’t a film with “action,” necessarily, which can sometimes make the pace somewhat drawn out. Then again, the inclusion of ghosts and specters keep us on our toes. What is reality and what is fiction? Bergman provides no easy answers, and so the screenplay always keeps us coming back for more.

Music:

Like the visuals, the music by Daniel Bell does a great job matching the mood: comfortable baroque during the Christmas Eve party, barren cellos at the bishop’s house and foreboding piano during the surreal grand finale.

Ending (SPOILERS):

So, about that surreal grand finale … Bergman hearkens back to his psychological thriller days and concludes the story with unexplainable phenomena: the Ekdahl’s family friend (a Jewish money lender named Isak Jacobi) uses magic to transport Fanny and Alexander out of the bishop’s house, and Isak’s nephew Ismael (played by actress Stina Ekblad) seems to be a clairvoyant who fulfills Alexander’s wish to burn the bishop alive.

Are these events real? In the mind of a child undergoing traumatic experiences, they might as well be. Even when Alexander is safely back at home, he’s still haunted by ghosts — including the bishop. Perhaps these are just memories manifesting themselves as hallucinations? Bergman presents these occurrences without explanation and leaves it up to the viewer to draw their own metaphysical interpretation. Fittingly, the film’s final scene contains a passage from August Strindberg’s A Dream Play, suggesting that life is but a dream, and vice versa.

It’s a wonderfully ambiguous conclusion that suggests everything has meaning to those who open their minds. The final hour of Fanny and Alexander is fantastic and some of the most thought-provoking material Bergman ever created.

“Everything can happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns.” – Helena Ekdahl

**Why Fanny and Alexander gets an A**:

A powerful family epic with surprising surreal overtones, Fanny and Alexander is a worthy swansong for Sweden’s greatest director. However, the fact that the 188-minute film was pared down from a 312-minute miniseries prevents it from becoming a masterpiece from a “purist’s” point of view.

“Fanny and Alexander” (1982)