Fanny and Alexander

Although he directed several later productions for television, Fanny and Alexander (1982) was the last film Ingmar Bergman directed for theatrical release, and it was the final film shown in this year's Bergman film festival at the Seattle Art Museum.   It's interesting to note that Fanny and Alexander was originally intended for release as a five-hour television mini-series in Sweden.   The work was cut to three hours for theater viewing, but has also been shown in theaters in its original five-hour length.

I last saw the film at the time of its original release.  My memory was of a warm, Swedish family drama, centered around a beautiful and often funny Christmas party.  That aspect is there, of course, especially in the early scenes.  The beauty and richness of the family's Christmas decorations have been copied, reportedly, by Swedes ever since the movie was first seen.

But the film I saw last night was a stranger, harsher, and more frightening film than the Fanny and Alexander of my memories.

Even during the lushly beautiful and joyous Christmas celebrations, it was clear that the joy was unalloyed only for the children.  The adults brought their own worries and arguments and problems in life to the party. 

The film begins in the year 1907 in Uppsala, Sweden, at the home of Alexander's and Fanny's parents -- a home in which live many of their relatives on both sides of the family.  The home is huge and it is beautiful.  Although the children's parents are involved in theater, somewhere they have apparently managed to accumulate a large amount of money. 

Alexander, through whose eyes and consciousness most of the plot is viewed, is twelve, and his sister Fanny is perhaps three years younger.   The previously inexperienced actor who plays Alexander was asked years later how he was cast in the role, and he replied:  "I asked Ingmar later why he chose me. He said it was because I acted with my eyes".  Understandable.  The boy shows remarkable poise and intensity, speaking not only with his eyes but with his entire face.  (The actor did not pursue an acting career; he earned his Ph.D. and is today an engineer, working in Stockholm at the Royal Institute of Technology.)

Trouble enters Alexander's world after his father dies and his mother marries a Lutheran bishop.  The bishop, who at first seems kind and charming, gently but firmly chiding Alexander for a fabrication he had told his schoolmates about running off and joining the circus, shows his true colors following marriage.  His bride and her two children are moved from their sumptuous house to his spartan bishop's residence, surrounded by his own somewhat ghoulish relatives.  The children are locked in their room whenever their mother leaves the house. 

Alexander, whose imagination obviously suggests that of Bergman himself, tells a maid that he had met the ghosts of the bishop's prior wife and children, and had been told that the bishop had been responsible for their deaths.  The bishop is infuriated, and threatens Alexander with extreme punishments if he does not confess and repent.  Alexander coolly stares the bishop in the eye and refuses.  But he ultimately backs down, is congratulated for confessing like a man, and is then subjected to a severe caning.  It's a difficult scene to watch.

By this time, the bishop has refused Alexander's mother a divorce.  Under Swedish law, if she leaves without his consent, he retains custody of her children.  The children escape, by the help of Isak Jacobi, a Jewish family friend, a puppet-maker, and they hide out at his rambling and mysterious house and workshop.  In one of the odder scenes of the film, Alexander meets Ismael, a young man who is kept confined behind locked doors because he is "dangerous."  Ismael is a beardless youth with a voice like a child's -- acted by a woman -- who reads Alexander's mind and tells him that he, Alexander, hates someone with murderous intent.  Alexander has a vision of the bishop's being consumed by fire.

At the time of this vision, events conspire to actually start a fire at the bishop's residence, and he is burned to death.

The family and children are all happily re-united.  Until Alexander is knocked to the floor in an empty hall by the ghost of the bishop.  The bishop tells Alexander that he will never escape him.  Never.

Alexander runs to his mother's arms and curls up next to her.

Is Fanny and Alexander a ghost story?   A tale of the supernatural?   Throughout the movie, not only Alexander but other members of the family had received visitations from the ghost of the deceased father, who had each time sadly expressed concern for his children's fate.  Some of Alexander's visions might be attributed to his talent for imagination, or to his mistaken memory of the past.  But not all the ghostly appearances were in Alexander's presence.

The children's parents were actors, and references to Hamlet crop up repeatedly.  The mother quotes Hamlet to Alexander, knowing full well that her 12-year-old son would understand the references.  All the family members would be well acquainted with Hamlet's words of warning to a pedantic rationalist:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

At a happy family dinner, following the bishop's death, Alexander's most ebullient uncle sums up his view of life:

The world is a den of thieves, and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world.

Maybe we are all alone in the universe, he suggests.  Or maybe we are surrounded by spirits of the dead.  Maybe we are protected by angels or besieged by devils.  Those are big questions for brilliant people in the "great world" to think about.

Let us just be happy at times like this dinner, he would say, in our "little world," knowing that happiness doesn't last forever, but can be wonderful while we still have it.

And on that note, Bergman's career more or less comes to a close.