A Ilha de Bergman

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.

There's an island where a maestro spent his days, Chris and Tony take some time and go and stay, it's not the most magnetic marriage, a slightly disaffected carriage, but they're there to draft stories, for their screenplays. As the days pass they absorb the auteur's land, while Tony forges on with all he's planned, but Chris struggles with her craft, until she outlines her first draft, that recalibrates into, a future land.

A thoughtful piece of cinema, as stories entwine and timelines are confused, on an island where many of the greatest were formulated and filmed. Brilliant if you're a Bergman fan, perhaps a bit too obscure if you're not.

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.

Master Director Ingmar Bergman famously lived for the last decades of his life on the island of Fårö off Sweden and made it the setting for many of his films as well as varied relationships with wives and women. Writer-Director Mia Hansen-Love (EDEN, THINGS TO COME) sets her newest film on the isle and it becomes a character in and of itself.

A filmmaking couple, Chris (Vicky Krieps; so fascinating in PHANTOM THREAD) and Tony (Tim Roth), visit Fårö to work on their new screenplays as well as soak in the Bergman atmosphere, both being devoted to the famed Director. Tony is also being feted by the Swedish film community which grants the pair special access including a stay at one of Bergman's homes. This description may make it seem like this is a movie only for fans of the Swedish Director (he passed in 2007), but Hansen-Love has more on her mind (still, at least a cursory knowledge of Bergman's work is essential). This isn't to say that the film isn't littered with references and allusions to the filmmakers work and life - it is (the couple sleep in the same bedroom that was used for Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE: "The film that made millions of people divorce" as is said here); But, Hansen-Love's focus is on the personal dynamics.

While Tony is obviously the senior partner in both age and success, the central character is clearly Chris. A movie within the movie brings to life the screenplay that she is working on. That inner tale concerns a young woman (Mia Wasikowska) who meets up with an old flame (Anders Danielsen Lie) at a wedding....on Fårö. While Wasikowska's character is named 'Amy', she is clearly a stand-in for Chris. It's a tricky and mostly clever device, even if it is awkwardly inserted into the storyline (and far too late). As a backstory within a backstory, Hansen-Love herself famously had a long affair with French Director Olivier Assayas -- who was also the senior partner in both age and success. And, to extend the "in" nature of the production even on step further, Greta Gerwig had been slated to play Chris originally (Gerwig, of course, also being involved in a filmaking couple romance with Noah Baumbach). As noted, it's awkward.

Cinefiles certainly are the target audience here. Bergman presence clearly haunts the island and there is talk of how he may have believed in ghosts. The film has an oddly structured screenplay that meanders a bit before making its design clear, but there are pleasures to be had for those that stick with it. The uninitiated may find it a pleasant tour of the scenic island (usually rendered bleakly in Bergman's films, and often in Black &White).

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.