A Ilha de Bergman

Bergman Island: The eponymous island (named Fårö ) is where Bergman filmed many of his great works, not least of which was Scenes From A Marriage; you can even rent the house where it was filmed and sleep in the actual bedroom which featured in it. Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth) do just that, both are filmmakers, Tony being the more famous of the two, his films are being screened by the Bergman Foundation and he;s giving Master Classes. He's also working on his new film as is Chris on the script for hers. Their relationship has troubles right out of a Bergman film. The screenplay Chris is working on reflects some of those very problems. The scenario comes to life as a film within a film, Amy (Mia Wasikowska) an American film director arrives on Fårö for the marriage of an old friend, also there is her first love, Joe (Anders Danielsen Lie), an affair starts up again.

Love, relationships and responsibilities are explored in this film as it goes meta, eventually blending fact with fiction. Bergman himself is an inspiration to both Chris and Tony but respect his work ethic is somewhat tempered by an examination of his personal life. Bergman had nine children by six different women but played little part in their upbringing. Chris has problems with this but it is argued by others that he wouldn't have made 60 films, directed numerous plays and become artistic director of five theatres if he had domestic duties. Chris reflects that it would be impossible for her (or any female director) to have nine children and carry on with her career. Not just a homage to Bergman, here he is warts and all but this is a film he might well have been happy to direct. Written and Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve. 8/10.

Beautiful movie in a history-filled location, though not much happens.

Interesting, well crafted and relatable main characters and refreshing storytelling. Lacks meaning and is not very emotionally engaging or exciting; still I do not think it ever gets boring since the story keeps moving albeit, as i said before, nothing hugely significant happens.

Captivating premise for cinephiles who want to know more about Bergman, the legendary Swedish director, and the island he used to live on.

6/10.

Could have been a great film, but it cannot decide which way to go. It feels like standing beore a signpost with a dozen possible directions, but the author director could not really make up her mind which one to pursue.

Since the story revolves around Ingmar Bergman, who used to life and film on this island, we get a lot of references, movie clips, talks, sights, and quips about him, his films and his life. Praise and critique about Bergman is woven into the story of a couple of filmmakers, Chris and Tony, coming to Fårö, to write scripts and learn more on Bergman. Their different work styles, subjects and attitude have quite some Bergmanesque quality, though none of the straits are followed to the end. The Bergman worshipping and bashing does not offer any new insights and sounds like remnants from an abandoned documentary project. The film tends to remain on the lighter side until we get to hear and see Chris' script evolve as she tells it to her partner.

Here begins the strongest plot line, blending fiction with the reality. I only wish the director had focussed more on this development. It would have been an ultimately more compelling film.

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.

I really enjoyed and loved this film, but I can also understand why others won't. I won't go over the synopsis because I assume most readers are already familiar with it/can easily do so. The pacing is very slow and the plot gets more convoluted as we go along, and there are many many references to Bergman, and so again, I can understand why this would be alienating and maybe even annoying to some, but these are some of the reasons why I liked this film so much. The tone and the way that every scene is directed and shot are also very different from other "serious" so-called arthouse films. The universal and perhaps timeless subject matter--love, relationships, artistic creation, loneliness (or solitude, depending), to name some--are indeed serious but are also treated in a casual, airy, even jovial manner (and not in the derogatory sense of these words), which was really refreshing and made me even reconsider my own preferences, cinematic or otherwise, and the way that I view Bergman in particular and artistic inspiration more generally. There's also a sort of dreamlike atmosphere that surrounds the film and the film within a film especially.

The first hour or so is a very careful and brilliantly written setup for the second hour in which doubles and doubling will appear - characters become narrators and also understudies for other characters, and virtually every sentence that they say can be interpreted metafictionally, as they are aware of being actors in a film (or in the film within a film, as well). It's indeed a film that interprets itself and its own mechanisms, especially its writing process, which is not new (Godard, for example), of course, but this is exactly where the director has shown originality and creativity. Hansen-Løve takes Bergman and his films (and his alter ego in the form of the beautiful, serene island of Fårö itself and also possibly her partner, another threatening male director that looms in the background or the foreground), and instead of merely referencing him for the sake of reference alone and sounding "smart", as a "formidable reference" as one character says, she plays with his myth, with his films. After all, the word "allusion" comes from the word "to play," and this is where the film really shines quite brilliantly. Ghosts become zombies in a horror film within the film, words become real, and the "power of fiction," as one character writes in their journal, dazzles. There's also an interesting discussion of human relationships, love, motherhood, what it means to love more than one person at the same time, especially when it comes from a woman. Women here as in Bergman's films are indeed the driving force both of the plot and of the actual film, dealing with the old issue of writer's block in a new perspective, truly. I think this is what originality really is now: you take an artwork or its creator which precedes you (and in film or any other medium, of course, you never operate solely on your own or in a vacuum, but are under an influence of tradition and an entire history that "haunts" you), and try to re-mold it, shape it into something new by using the same tools but in a different, singular way, using your own tone. Notice that the title of the film is "Bergman Island" and not "Bergman's Island". Bergman doesn't own the island nor can he monopolize it, as much as the industry born from his life there is very much alive. Every director, character, visitor, and film spectator shares the island and its impression via this film. I will say, though, that the ending did feel a bit rushed and maybe even underdeveloped, but it's still done masterfully, showing complete control of the medium of film.