Bergman Island (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Bergman Island (2021) – M. Hansen-Løve

I won tickets to this film and it seemed like fate, since I’ve been regularly watching Bergman films from my Criterion boxset over the last couple of years. (But the experience was a bit strange, as I turned out to be the only viewer in the small 16-seat cinema). Mia Hansen-Løve’s film does offer rewards to those familiar with the great director’s oeuvre.  For example, it takes place on Fårö, the island where he made many of his classic films (Persona, Through a Glass Darkly, Shame, Hour of the Wolf) and where he retired and lived out his later years. As portrayed by the film, the island seems to have become a bit of a Bergman theme park with a “Safari” taking tourists to the various locations from his films and also his house (fully maintained with his book and video libraries and private screening room). Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth play a film-making couple who have retreated to the island to work on their latest screenplays and to find inspiration. I only realised later that this relationship echoed Hansen-Løve’s own relationship with Olivier Assayas.  I expected that the film would tackle the angsty themes of Bergman, about humans forsaken by God (if God even exists) or the difficulties of communicating with others (even those we love).  But Hansen-Løve’s film never gets quite that dark. The second half, in which Krieps tells her screenplay idea to Roth and we see it enacted onscreen (by Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie), investigates relationships more thoroughly (“the invisible spaces between people”) and presents greater possibilities for crossed wires and misinterpreted actions – but still remains rather gentle, focusing on the emotional dramas of young people (that we older people might now see in a different light, as over-dramatic in the larger context of life). So, although the film didn’t go where I thought it would go, its lack of a formulaic (or predictable) plot is one of its great strengths.  The frank discussions of Ingmar Bergman, his work and his life, both celebrating and critiquing are another high point, with characters identifying both strengths and weaknesses of the director. A particularly poignant critique targets the luxury of being a privileged male artist supported by six wives who raised his children and allowed him freedom to pursue his work, something that Hansen-Løve might feel somewhat acutely as a woman and mother, in comparison to her (former) partner Assayas.