Fanny and Alexander

The eponymous children (Pernilla Allwin and Bertil Guve) live an happy upper-middle class life with their theatre-manager father "Oskar" (Allan Edwall) and mother "Emilie" (Ewa Fröling) and are looking forward to Christmas. Parties ensue and a good time is had by all until the father is suddenly taken ill. His death follows swiftly and their mother is soon being wooed by the rather puritanical bishop "Vergerus" (Jan Malmsjö) who has a rather different, more disciplinarian, attitude to bringing up the children. When they marry, the life of "Alexander", especially, becomes nigh on intolerable. "Emilie" is initially tolerant of her new husband's policies, but gradually she grows to hate him and to start finding a way to get herself and her children back the safety of her own, loving, family. It's slightly episodic, this film. Phase one shows us the happiness, the second the marriage, the third - well that's the escape from the marriage - and it's the second phase that works best for me. A really quite chilling performance from Malmsjö as the cruel man of God also brings out a spirited effort from the young Guve who proves that "Alexander" is definitely not a quitter. The design of this film contrasts well the relative, red-velvet, luxury of their original home with the austerity of the bishop's much more sparse and chilled residence - and of that comparative change in their familial dynamic. Daniel Bell provides us with a score that accompanies the ups and downs of these two children, and increasingly of their mother, well too. Fröling's is another robust contribution - we can sense her character's infuriating frustration as she realises that it's a man's world, and she is largely trapped by her husband's status and subject to his will. It's a bit of a slow starter this, Bergman takes his time introducing us to characters that have varying degrees of tangentiality to the ultimate thread, but it does ultimately create the feeling that this is a family, a community - and some of the pieces starts to fit nicely as we head to the denouement. That conclusion? Well, I rather liked that! It's best on a big screen this film. The aesthetic is more effective and appreciable that way and don't be put off by the three hours - it really does move along quickly once we're underway.