Bergman Island: Marie Nyreröd

The most fascinating and illuminating parts of Marie Nyreröd's documentary on Cinematic Grandmaster Ingmar Bergman, Bergman Island, aren't necessarily what he says in the interviews. Instead, they are the desperate, rumbling pauses Bergman makes as he grasps for answers. Filmed four years before his death, Bergman Island documents a series of interviews done in his reclusive home on Fårö Island. If one wished to learn about Bergman, his life, and his work, I would recommend starting elsewhere. While many important details of Bergman's life are covered, the film's 83 minute run-time does not have the capacity to properly capture the size, magnitude, and impact he made on the world. Instead, what Bergman Island flawlessly captures is an intimate, almost sacrosanct portrait of Bergman in his final years. Having been three years since the release of Saraband (2003), his final directorial effort, this film finds the legendary director living a life of quite, almost desperate solitude. He seems to embody a resignation that could only result from a life very fully lived. In one of the film's most moving scenes, he carefully hooks up the first cinematograph he ever owned as a child. We watch his hands violently tremble as he lights the internal lantern and threads an ancient piece of film through it. There is something oddly sad about the scene. Perhaps it is the realization by both Bergman and the audience that this was the first time in decades that he had used it...and very probably the last. What becomes apparent as Bergman Island plays is that for a man who almost never gave interviews throughout his life, he created one of the most autobiographical cinematic oeuvres ever constructed. It makes one desire to give Bergman's films another look, if only to excavate the memories and experiences scattered throughout them.

7/10