Bergman Island

At first a rather boring car journey and a rather uninteresting looking island where Chris and Tony, or Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth are to have a working holiday for their screenplays. Faro was the island where Ingmar Bergman worked and filmed and Roth is especially keen on being there. The couple are not quite as loving as they might have been and Krieps starts to tell her story, although he is not so interested, as he has already planned out his own. Of course the story becomes a film within a film and it is something like her life and there are moments about Bergman. Roth even rented the house that had been filmed with the very bed in Scenes For A Marriage, 'The film that made millions of people divorce'. I understand that in reality the director, Mia Hansen-Love had a long affair with the French director Olivier Assayas who was the senior partner in both age and success.

Bergman Island is a beautiful story about the creativity and strong inner life of artists.

My review is likey biased towards favorable one because most clever and abundant references were so familiar to me, not only Ingmar Bergman's films and his biography (recommend Laterna magica to everybody), but also the soundtrack including the hymns of Lutheran church, the recurring theme of Vem kan segla förutan vind and naturally one of the key songs Abba's Winner takes it all. All these elements strongly resonated within me together with the beautiful but a bit harsh island of Fårö connected with a ferry to the outer world.

This was an extremely beautiful film about the creative process and strong inner life of artists. Its focus was what is lurking under the surface which may be only expressed in the art. Here, the theme is the severe longing of fulfillment, in love but also in the film making. The longing of complete connection, warmth and acceptance.

I loved the choice of using a triple-layer structure, the meta-layers were convincing and emotional. Mia Wasikowska's performance was perfect as always. I also admired Tim Roth's subtle performance which created the needed background for the inner struggle of the main protagonist and the artist in the film, played by Vicky Krieps.

The paradox is that the lack of absolute love and connection often drives the artistic process and you need to embrace it while writing and directing. Yet, you need to come back to the imperfect but real world after the process. This may be exhausting. This films describes this perfectly.

I would recommend this film to all cinemaphiles, in particular to those with an earlier interest in Ingmar Bergman's work and life. The movies's tempo is rather slow and the layered structure may be a bit demanding for a wider film audience. This film also gives a valuable view on the women in the film industry as creative artists themselves and not only as muses and lovers of famous directors.

A nifty meta-infused drama about the blurred boundary between the creative process and the life of the creator.

Vicky Krieps is the not very happy heroine at the center of the film, a filmmaker married to another filmmaker (Tim Roth) who has an Ingmar Bergman obsession. They are staying at a Swedish retreat devoted to honoring the film giant's legacy, because what could be more fun than going on a Bergman safari, which is an actual thing, and where they hilariously play Bergman movies on the tour bus. Put "Cries and Whispers" on for your kids on your next road trip and see how far that gets you.

In the grand tradition of artistic couples, Roth is self absorbed and kind of an ass. He's half-heartedly supportive of his wife's latest and stalled project, a movie within a movie that we get to see played out for us as Krieps explains it to Roth. Mia Wasikowska plays the heroine of Krieps's film, a version of herself dealing with the feelings generated by a lingering love affair. Though Wasikowska is also an actual person on Krieps's film crew, and as you can imagine, the film remains pretty vague about how much of what we see actually happens vs. How much is part of the fiction Krieps creates for her movie. Though it doesn't really matter, since either way we get a crystal clear idea of what's going on in Krieps's head. If you are the kind of person who likes to be very clear about what is happening in a movie at any given point in its running time, you will hate this film.

I for one really enjoyed the way this movie played around with time and fluidly moved back and forth between fiction and reality. And Krieps and Wasikowska both give great performances.

Grade: A.

"Can I tell you about the story I'm writing?"

A couple retreat to the island that inspired Ingmar Bergman to write screenplays for their upcoming films when the lines between reality and fiction start to blur. Bergman Island is a light-hearted drama that's been going from festival to festival the past few month. People have praised it as a great feel good movie for cinephiles. If I'm being honest, I haven't actually seen a Bergman film. The closest I've gotten was this year's limited series Scenes From a Marriage based on his film. Being in film school, though, I am familiar with his works and what he has done for cinema. Bergman Island is there to pay homage to the name Bergman. Everything about it is centered around the filmmaker. The first 45-minutes actually goes through a tour and gives the audience a slice of who he was. This is good for those who don't know him. After a little bit, it does begin to feel more like a lesson than part of the movie. It is necessary to know all of this information but it can be a bit excessive. It almost feels like it's testing our knowledge and talking down to us. When we get into the actual story the movie is about, it becomes an enjoyable time. Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth play a troubled couple trying to find their voice for their upcoming screenplays. The two play their characters well. I found Krieps' character more appealing. We are supposed to side with her and follow almost the entire time so that is inevitable. Her passion for film and wanting a story centered around a woman like her is delightful to see.

Where the movie finds a unique voice in story is Krieps' idea of a story. The movie becomes a movie inside of a movie. This movie that we're watching stars Mia Wasikowska as a woman similar to Krieps' down to the look. This new story actually took my interest more than the overall one. It's very fun and a little more relatable. And Wasikowska steals the entire show! By adding this new aspect, it grounds the movie as a whole. Both stories start off string but lose steam as they go along. By the time we get to the new story, it felt like it was going nowhere. As great of an idea as this is and it works well, the placement is awkward. Not till about an hour in so we see this. It diverts our attention, and for good reason, but feels out of place to begin with. By the end of the new story, I started to feel some fatigue. The very end of the movie leaves us on a hopeful thought. It's a movie full of hope and there to inspire others to let their creativity flow. Mia Hansen-Løve showcases good filmmaking through direction and writing. I'm glad I saw it once it ended. I do think there were story aspects that could've been approved upon, but this is a downright enjoyable movie. Bergman Island is available to rent on VOD and it's one that I'd like to revisit again someday.

You need to be at a real ease to keep following. Nice atmosphere here and there, yet like Father of my children, it feels something missing.... it is not well held together... it feels it has been thought of in bits and pieces... making an effort to appear artsy.... it does has its moments , some clever dialogues and situation... yet something feels missing.. as astory.