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Rating:
Childhood has been my main supplier.
“Fanny and Alexander” is a "dreamed" autobiography; a grand fresco, in which more than fifty characters move in a reality that, almost distorted by memory, ends up becoming a dream. It is a sumptuous film: in duration; in the number of characters, in the quality of the actors; in photography; in the complexity of the plot; in the variety of themes addressed; in costumes; in scenography; in setting; in screenplay. It is the story of the Ekdahl family from Uppsala, between Christmas 1907 and the spring of 1909. It focuses on three central themes: art; religion; magic. The film alternates family rituals; heart-wrenching marital quarrels that seem extracted from Strindberg's pieces; gloomy conflicts of Lutheran darkness that refer to Dreyer's expressionistic and visionary art; feilleton-like twists, idyllic scenes, interludes of joyful sensuality, fantastic surges, magic, tricks, and reawakened dead. Bergman frescoes the family saga of a bourgeois family in a town in the Swedish province, the Ekdhal, whose members refer to the matriarchal figure of grandmother Helena, strong and wise, an actress in her youth. When illness causes Oscar's death, Alexander's mother, Emilie, finds comfort in religion and will end up marrying Vergerus, a Protestant pastor. Fanny and Alexander's lives undergo a sharp and radical change: from the sumptuous residence full of games and amusement, they will pass, and must swiftly adapt, to the rigidity and austerity of daily life lived almost entirely in the rectory. Alexander no longer has the puppet theater with which he gave free rein to his rampant imagination. Thus, he can only draw inspiration from real-world events and from life in the rectory, where a tragic event occurred shortly before their arrival and from which he draws his free and, if we want, naive, childlike interpretation. Fantasy and reality blend and mix in Alexander, unleashing the pastor's uncontrollable and seemingly unjustified anger. Fanny and Alexander are now prisoners in the rectory, so much so that the grandmother will be forced to organize, with the help of her Jewish lover, the children's abduction. On the night he is hidden in the Jewish junk dealer's warehouse, Alexander, with his visions, questions the unfathomable mystery of life and death. And finally comes the longed-for yet unexpected liberation, with the accidental death of the bishop, a victim of a fire that broke out in the house while he was asleep. Aunt Elsa will overturn the oil lamp that Vergerus himself had placed next to the bed to illuminate the darkness of the night, ignite her clothes, and, running through the entire house, will set fire everywhere. The ending, poignant and significant, is centered entirely on the words of grandmother Helena, who begins to read a story to Alexander, resting his head on her lap. The film is strongly autobiographical. Ingmar Bergman reconstructs, with his usual precision and love, the large rooms of his house in Uppsala. Alexander Eckdhal is Ingmar Bergman himself as a child. And Bergman draws abundantly from his childhood memories, to which he appears firmly anchored.
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