When I watch a good movie about childhood I'm always reminded of my own childhood, even if nothing about the movie resembles my life. I wasn't raised in a large wealthy family in Victorian Sweden, nor did my father die when I was young leaving my mother to marry an insane Lutheran minister with a penchant for comically evil looking crosses. Yet I'm transported back into childhood by "Fanny and Alexander." As two characters point out at the beginning and end of the movie, it's about the "little world" of family, which is pretty much the entire world when you're a child.
Seriously, though, look at that frightful black coat, black cross, and black cat combo in the second-to-last picture. For all his genius, Ingmar Bergman isn't exactly subtle. Just look at the warm, red, glowing world of the Ekdahls compared to the cold, blue, spare world of the bishop. Although I guess you could say the lack of subtlety is a result of the story being told from a child's perspective.
Oh, and by the way, you can watch the whole movie on YouTube here. And by the "whole movie," I mean the abridged, movie version, as opposed to the made-for-TV version, which is substantially longer.
1 comment:
My enduring memory of the little world of childhood is having always wanted to get out of it. I don't think I have yet.
You might be weird, Madeline, but I reckon you're a pretty well balanced sort of weird.
Post a Comment