Mia Hansen-Løve, the French director and writer of “Bergman Island”, who was not present at Telluride, left a message that the film was “so personal” and that she made it in English to open the “door to fiction”. Like her film’s major character, Hansen-Løve was in a relationship with a director, Olivier Assayas (“Personal Shopper”).
Tony (Tim Roth, “Pulp Fiction”) and Chris (Vicki Krieps, “Phantom Thread”), married filmmakers, arrive on the island of Fårö for some public events and to work on future projects. Fårö was the home of Ingmar Bergman, my favorite director, and location where many of his masterpieces were filmed, starting with “Through a Glass Darkly” (1961).
Vicki Krieps and Time Roth in “Bergman Island”
Tony and Chris will be sleeping in the bed used in Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage”, the film, a guide tells them, was the cause of millions of divorces. When she hears that Bergman had 9 children from 6 women. Chris ponders if a woman could have as extensive a career as Bergman. Bergman is described “as cruel in art as in life”.
“Bergman Island” is enthralling. The spirit of Ingmar Bergman suffuses the film as the artistic couple, extremely well played in contrasting characterizations by Roth and Krieps, react differently to the surroundings. Tony, the more established filmmaker, remains comfortable in his public appearances. Chris finds the natural beauty of the island “oppressive’ and reconsiders her life and her current project which is giving her some difficulty.
Vicki Krieps and Time Roth in “Bergman Island”
The film has some sly humor as theorizing critics turn tourist when visiting sites from Bergman films. At a gift shop, Chris purchases a copy of the sunglasses Bibi Andersson wore in “Persona”.
Hansen-Løve brings her unique and intriguing twist to the themes inspired by the visit to the island where Bergman lived and worked. She imagines her ongoing project, a sequence with Mia Wasikowska (“Crimson Peak”) and Anders Danielsen Lie (“Reprise”) in which the characters ponder loving more than one person at a time.
Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie in “Bergman Island”
Hansen-Løve’s “Bergman Island” is lighter in tone and with more warmth than the masterworks that took place on the island that inspired this film.
Cinema Sight 