About

This screening will be of Episodes 1 & 2 of the Television Version of Fanny and Alexander.

Fanny and Alexander was meant to be the end. Ingmar Bergman had decided to make one final cinematic statement before retiring to a life of theatre, television, and writing. While he would eventually return behind the camera for 2003's Saraband, Fanny and Alexander is the great director's grand testament: a sweeping, loosely-autobiographical portrait of a family through the eyes of two young siblings in turn-of-the-century Sweden. An opulent production featuring dozens of individual speaking roles, it would be the most expensive Swedish film produced at the time.

The Television Version of the film runs to a total of 312 minutes, compared to the Theatrical Version’s 188 minutes. This extra space allows Bergman to further flesh out the characters and explore its magical realist approach to the blurred line between fiction and reality, the dead and the living.

Fanny and Alexander is an epic of the intimate. It is a monumental summation of a life's work; it combines melancholy and joy, high emotion with warm humour. While it did not end up being Bergman's final film, it may still be his magnum opus.