Andra 🦋’s review published on Letterboxd:
Fanny and Alexander is one of Bergman’s most ambitious works. With a runtime clocking at 312 minutes, this miniseries has the taste of a Victorian novel by Charles Dickens, and like one of Dickens’s books once you enter the story, you can’t let go.
The first episode is the hardest to get through, it serves as a setting for what’s to follow, and introduces us to the big Ekdahl family, given the huge amount of characters at first can be a bit difficult to remember who is who, but soon enough that’s not a problem anymore, and you feel right at home, at Christmas, with your family.
Even though it’s Christmas, not everything is happy and fun, from the very first minute a sense of impending death and catastrophe reeks from the Ekdahl’s house, so that, even at the most joyous peak, the viewer is always suspicious, preparing for what’s to follow.
Or at least, they think they’re preparing.
The second and third episodes are devastating. Everything established in the first episode is slowly torn into pieces, a feel of helplessness becomes the protagonist in every scene. The vibrant red that had characterized the story to this point is replaced by grey and black, a mournful turn of events visually represented.
The characters are beautifully written, given the runtime, everyone has a chance to grow and to express themselves, becoming a person, rather than just being a word on a script, but on the multitude of characters there are two that stand out among the others: Alexander and Edvard. Both of them have strong personalities, and they are the exact opposite, leading to a conflict that transcends the story of the movie and becomes a philosophical confrontation between dreams and reality, the metaphysical and the physical world,innocence and corruption.
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