Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 362: Fri Dec 29

Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 1.30pm

This film, also screening on December 23rd and 30th, is part of the cinema's Big Screen Classics season. You can find details of the season here.

Chicago Reader review:
Ingmar Bergman's 1983 feature, condensed from a much longer TV series, is less an autumnal summation of his career than an investigation of its earliest beginnings: through the figure of ten-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), Bergman traces the storytelling urge, developing from dreams and fairy tales into theater and (implicitly) movies. The film doesn't so much surmount Bergman's usual shortcomings—the crude contrasts, heavy symbolism, and preachy philosophizing—as find an effective context for them. Tied to a child's mind, the oversimplifications become the stuff of myth and legend. As in The Night of the Hunter, a realistic psychological drama is allowed to expand into fantasy; the result is one of Bergman's most haunting and suggestive films.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

No comments: