Fanny and Alexander written and directed by Ingmar Bergman

 Fanny and Alexander written and directed by Ingmar Bergman


Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:

-              https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E   and   http://realini.blogspot.ro/

This is a chef d’oeuvre.
Critics, scholars and experts have included this dazzling film among the best ever made and it is perhaps only to be expected.

It won four Academy Awards, the Golden globe for Best Foreign Language Film, BAFTA, Cesar and so many other awards.
When I first saw it, I thought this is the best film that I have ever seen.

If not the best, certainly among the very best.
And it is so different from Persona, Through A Glass Darkly, Scenes From A Marriage and so many, if not most of Bergman’s creations.

For a good part of the film, there are more similarities with the comedy Smiles Of A summer Night, with the joy of living plainly expressed.
But this is much more complex, given that about one hour or thereabouts we have the drama of the children that is so overwhelming.

Without going into details that would necessitate a spoiler alert, I will limit myself to say that Fanny and Alexander suffer terribly.
Their father dies early on in the film, albeit Alexander is able to see his and another ghost and even talk to the figures of another world.

Emilie Ekdahl is the innocent mother of Fanny and Alexander, who suffers from the trauma of losing a loving husband.
However, instead of experiencing a Post Traumatic Growth, she is affected by PTSD Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I am facetious and making a bad joke, for lack of a reasonable explanation for her choice of accepting the advances of Edvard Vergerus.

-          This evil, horrendous, cruel, heinous bishop joins a long line of monsters, from Lex Luthor to Mephistopheles

Yes, the young widow has been deceived and then punished cruelly for her misjudgment, but her Emotional Intelligence should have prevented such a catastrophe that involved her children and caused them to suffer.

On the other hand, this devil was a “man of the church” pretending to be …oh, so virtuous, modest and disinterested in material things.

-          What a devious, cunning and ferocious “wolf in sheep clothes”

The actor in this demanding role has rendered magisterially the ruthlessness and the two faces of this maniac.
And then he was not alone.

Inside the austere prison that he called home and indeed used to torment his new family, there were other figures from hell.
This devilish bishop lives with mother, aunt, sister and maids that all seem to share a pleasure for sadistic experiments.

Except perhaps for the sick woman- who still looks grotesque and terrifying at the same time- the others are demons from hell.
Even the maid is a mirror image of the masters, encouraging poor Alexander to speak about his vision only to “inform” on him.

The religious, transcendent meaning of the film escapes me, especially since I am not a believer and epiphanies have not been forthcoming…
Yet.
Insha’Allah, there will be one day when, like Alexander, I will be able to see the dead and engage with them.
After these future conversations in which they will explain the workings of paradise, I will be convinced and saved.

Alhamdulillah!

Unless the story mentioned by Professor Tal Ben Shahar in his Harvard lectures- most popular ever- is true

-          This man who has been a thief arrives in a very pleasant place that he quickly identifies as heaven:
-          There is nothing to do there, but there is a serenity, pleasant atmosphere and everything seems perfect
-          Except that is the boredom that finally beats our hero who insists upon getting some job, something to do
-          When refused and told there is nothing, the fella finally gives up and cannot stand it anymore asking:
-          Look, I want to go to the other place
-          This is the other place says the figure with an evil smile on the face…


I think the professor said this is from The Twilight Zone and it is similar with this passage in Fanny and alexander wherein the bishop and his paradisiacal abode turn out to be…”the other place” 

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