Fanny et Alexandre

WOW watched this whole thing last night, what a complete masterpiece. I am very curious to see the Theatrical Version to see what was cut, but I can't imagine missing anything from the TV version. Every moment has a purpose and the length gives the story even more profound power. It's absolutely brilliant and hit me harder than anything I've watched in a long time. I would definitely encourage people to seek out this full version if they can.

The Ekdahl family gathers their loved ones to celebrate Christmas together. Helena Ekdahl is the matriarch of the Ekdahl family. She has many relatives. Among them you can find her three sons, three daughters-in-law and a bunch of grandchildren.

Fanny and Alexander are two of Helena´s grandchildren. Their parents are Emilie and Oscar Ekdahl. One day something terrible happens. Oscar falls ill and dies. Everybody is devastated.

Bishop Edvard Vergérus was the one who held Oscar´s funeral. He marries Emilie Ekdahl, but their marriage begins to crumble quite soon. Why? Because bishop Vergérus is strict and conservative.

I really like this TV series. I watched it on SVT play. It was edited into a feature film. Yes, it is very long and yes, I took breaks. But I didn´t feel like I was wasting my time. I think that the cast and crew knew what they were doing. Ingmar Bergman took inspiration from his own life in "Fanny and Alexander". And the result is, in my opinion, a strong family drama with a personal touch. I would have liked to get a little more clarity, at least in a few scenes.

I´m looking forward to watching the shorter movie version, but I want to know much more about Ingmar Bergman first. I suggest that you watch "Fanny and Alexander".

Period drama, family saga, a film about theatre, a ghost story and the best Christmas film ever! The result was one of Bergman's most haunting and suggestive films. It emerges as a sumptuously produced tapestry of childhood memoirs and moods, fear and fancy, employing all the manners and means of the best of cinematic theatrical from high and low comedy to darkest tragedy with detours into the gothic, the ghostly and the gruesome. The movie is astonishingly beautiful. The uncut Fanny and Alexander is Bergman's most inclusive. He shows almost everything: all his moods, conflicts, styles and many of his favorite actors. A magical movie, locating a personal generosity and feeling like a youngster's film.

The story begins at Christmas: it is the very early part of the 20th century and the Ekdahls are coming together to celebrate under the roof of the family's matriarch: Helena. As they do so, we see the surfacing of the complexities, buried resentments and background tensions which exist within all large families. Amidst this set up, we are presented three brothers: Gustav, a burly, emotional man who is having an affair with his brother's nanny; Carl, an intellectual, petty individual who is experiencing a crisis of confidence as well as a crisis in his finances; and Oscar, the eponymous Fanny and Alexander's father, he is the owner of a local theatre who has dedicated his life to the world of make-believe. He has also inculcated in his children a reverance for imagination and story-telling. The family celebrations are immoderately festive: there's copious amounts of eating, there's dancing, illicit sexual encounters, an oedipal-esque menage a trois, which includes Alexander, and, for him and the rest of the children, there's ample space for imagination and play. As the film progresses, these events become something of a nostalgic ideal. Very soon after, the children are forced to contend with the illness and death of a loved one. They are whisked away from their world of family and theatre into a life of privation and austerity. Many twists and turns will have to occur before they can return to the place they once were. Of course, the truth is that they will never be able to fully return and, yet, neither will they fully be able to leave. The joys of their childhood will forever remain buried within their memories. It will be the treasure trove they can dig for in the midst of the vicissitudes of their future existence.

This epic film operates as a humanistic reflection on life and human nature. Bergman, along with Jean-Luc Godard, is the foremost name in existentialist cinema and he often deals with powerful themes such as the silence of God, the limits of love, and the pervasiveness of despair. This film operates as a weaving together of his observations and experiences of life as an artist but, first and foremost, as a human being. His writing is immaculate, he takes the time to make his characters genuinely rich and well-rounded. He tells a story in which there are no heroes or villains, just clumsy human beings, striving for but never quite reaching ultimate balance and wisdom. In the character of Alexander, he tells a coming-of-age story, a story of defiance, vulnerability and resiliance. The film, as a work of art, is a celebration of art itself. The tools needed to create are the tools many of the characters, especially the children, use to survive and make sense of their world. He uses long takes with naturalistic dialogue and centres the viewer within the confines of multiple sets, hardly any of the action takes place in outside locations as if to make it abundantly clear to the viewer that, despite the naturalism of the piece, this tale also is a tale of the imagination, taking place within a world created by its director. In telling this tale, he is both using and allowing his audience to experience a form of escpaism in order to evaluate the meaning and value of existence. This is cinema which unites its creator with its audience in order to produce a dense shared experience. It's a gift from one human being to another which says: this is how I have lived and sometimes prospered, may you also live, may you also sometimes prosper.

My Rating : 10/10 ♠ Tour de Force ♠

What an end to a career, one of the greatest to ever do it goes out with absolute integrity, clarity and confidence.

With so many masterpieces, my favourites being 'Winter Light', 'Wild Strawberries' and 'Cries and Whispers', Ingmar Bergman - a master of cinema - gives it his all in this semi-autobiographical work. The cinematography by Sven Nykvist is exquisite as usual.

Harrowing and profound, cold and clear; Bergman took hold of his demons and went for it.

While he hides from his demons in his grandmother's lap, she reads: "Anything can happen, anything is possible and likely.

Time and space do not exist.

On a flimsy ground of reality Imagination spins out and weaves new patterns."

'Not for pleasure alone'.