Fanny and Alexander (1982) [Blu-ray]
Drama

The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray]

Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth century Sweden. Ingmar Bergman intended Fanny And Alexander as his swan song, and it is the legendary director's warmest and most autobiographical film, a four-time Academy Award-winning triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional intensity with immense joy and sensuality. The Criterion Collection is proud to present both the theatrical release and the original five-hour television version of this great work. Also included in the box set is Bergman's own feature-length documentary The Making Of Fanny And Alexander, a unique glimpse into his creative process.

Storyline: The title characters are children in the exuberant and colorful Ekdahl household in a Swedish town early in the twentieth century. Their parents, Oscar and Emilie, are the director and the leading lady of the local theatre company. Oscar's mother and brother are its chief patrons. After Oscar's early death, his widow marries the bishop and moves with her children to his austere and forbidding chancery. The children are immediately miserable. The film dramatizes and resolves those conflicts. A sub-plot features Isak, a local Jewish merchant who is the grandmother's lover and whose odd household becomes the children's refuge. Written by

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov on November 14, 2011 -- Winner of four Oscar Awards, including Best Film and Best Cinematography, Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander" (1982) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The film begins with a big Christmas celebration. The members of the wealthy Ekdahl family and their closest friends have gathered to eat, drink, exchange gifts, and remind each other how blessed they are to live their lives the way they do. They all appear full of energy and enormously happy.

But at the end of the celebration their happy masks begin to fall. Grandmother Helena (Gunn Wallgren), the oldest and most authoritative amongst the Ekdahls, is lonely and jaded. She often cries when no one could see her because she misses her husband and because at her age life seems like a repetitive cycle of disappointments, some more painful than others. Her three sons are also jaded. Carl (Börje Ahlstedt) has racked up serious debts and some of his lenders have started asking for their money. He has also realized that marrying a poor German beauty who never learned to speak proper Swedish may not have been such a good idea. Gustav (Jarl Kulle) has recently noticed that when making love he can no longer perform as well as he used to, which is a shame because his much younger mistress, the nanny Maj (Pernilla August), will never find out what a great lover he once was. But he is still planning to buy her a café in Stockholm, and keep her for himself. Oscar (Allan Edwall) has been in charge with the family's theater business for years and done well, but times are changing and business is clearly not as good as it once was. Neither is his heart, which has been acting strangely as of late and forced him to take a few unexpected breaks from work. His wife Emilie (Ewa Fröling) hasn't noticed, but she has been too busy looking after their two beautiful children, Fanny (Pernilla Allwin) and Alexander (Bertil Guve).

While rehearsing Hamlet Oscar collapses, and within a day dies. Before he is buried, the town's bishop (Jan Malmsjo) appears and informs everyone that God has taken Oscar to a better place. He also assures Helena and Emilie that he will always be around if they need him. A few months later, the needy Emilie marries him and moves to his house with Fanny and Alexander.

The man of the cloth, however, becomes a monster. First he begins abusing Fanny and Alexander, then he attempts to destroy Emilie. The children do not understand why they are hated but feel that what is happening around them isn't right. Eventually, the ghosts Alexander has been seeing reveal to him an important secret.

Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander is largely an autobiographical film that chronicles a unique transition, the one where children slowly leave behind the magical world their imagination creates while they grow up and enter the cruel and often unjust world of the adults.

For Fanny and Alexander it is a long process of understanding what is real, what is right and wrong, how life begins and ends. They are taught simple lessons that gradually shape their personalities, their ambitions and goals.

The focus of attention, however, is primarily on Alexander, whose personal triumphs and disappointments are actually Bergman's. The magical world in which God, Death, and various mischievous ghosts coexist in peace where Alexander retreats also mirrors the one which the legendary Swedish director often visited during his childhood years.

Sven Nykvist's cinematography is exquisite. When the camera follows the Ekdahls in Helena's massive home, the film overflows with warm and lush colors. The bishop's home, however, looks incredibly cold and sterile.

Note: Criterion's 3-disc set contains the film's shorter theatrical version, running at approximately 189 minutes, and the original television version, running at approximately 322 minutes. The theatrical version of the film misses many of the spectacular fantasy sequences.

Warm, colorful, witty and incredibly moving, Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander is undoubtedly one of the great films of our time. Criterion's 3-disc set contains the theatrical release and the original five-hour television version of the film. Both look wonderful on Blu-ray, the best they ever have. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.


[CSW] -3.3- Fanny and Alexander was supposed to be Bergman's last film and partly autobiographical. For anyone new to Bergman films, I wouldn't recommend this as a place to start, but to watch later. This theatrical version that I watched is slightly over 3 hours long although the TV version is even longer. What we have is fairytale coming of age story of Alexander, who tends to have an the knack for elaborate stories along with an active imagination. The first hour of the movie will probably turn viewers off (myself included), but is important to Alexander's story and integral to the overall place-setting. It is needed to establish what will come later in the movie, although I think I could have gotten the idea in a lot less time. Overall Fanny and Alexander is a very emotional ride. Bergman creates beautiful elaborate settings and many scenes are amazing to watch, great eye candy but almost too busy to take it all in in one sitting (however I don't plan on sitting through it again). Outside of the religious motifs and the relationship between the bishop/stepfather and stepson, this movie pales in comparison to Bergman's other deep dark portrayals of the human psyche. To be quite honest, this film - outside of the wonderful settings/locale/set design or time period - fails on all levels except the description listed-above. Although the children's acting was great I considered their parts as normal for some adolescents and pre-teens. I almost wish Bergman centered the movie around the bishop, for there was a story there.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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