Mark Reviews Movies: BERGMAN ISLAND

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 14, 2021

Writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve's Bergman Island is, in a few ways, a film about balance. In it, two people, both of them filmmakers and in a romantic relationship together, take a kind of work holiday to Fårö, an island off the coast of Sweden. This is a place that inspired Ingmar Bergman, that quintessential Swedish filmmaker, and, beginning in the 1960s, where several of his many films were shot. This pair has traveled to the island for inspiration for their respective projects, and almost immediately upon arriving at one of Bergman's estates, the talk goes to his movies. What else, really, is there to speak of when standing in these spaces?

In its early stages, Hansen-Løve's film seems to be admiring and almost reverential ode to Bergman, as Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth), the visiting filmmakers, as well as just about every other character who shows up on screen, drop titles of Bergman films and point out various locations (Cheekily, they'll be sleeping in the bed from Scenes from a Marriage, a film that, according to the woman in charge of the estate, caused millions of people to get divorced). Tony even goes on the local Bergman Safari, a bus tour around the island to see famous locales from the director's films or see the empty spaces where a façade once stood, while a monitor on the vehicle plays those scenes.

The point is that Bergman and his oeuvre matter here, of course, but the extent of that significance starts to diminish as Hansen-Løve's own story evolves. That's part of the balance here, as the filmmaker tries to display how vital Bergman is for these characters and—theoretically to the point of near certainty—herself, only to gradually rely less and less on mentions and direct references to the director and his work.

In the first act or so, though, the story follows Chris and Tony, as they visit points of interest on the island, work at their respective desks on the estate, and slowly reveal a distinct way of how they engage in this excursion and why they wanted to visit Fårö in the first place. Tony follows the established path of museums and that bus tour, where the conversations are always about the movies and the technical side of shooting.

Chris, though, goes off on her own, looking for Bergman's grave at the local church and finding a young film student (played by Hampus Nodenson) in the process. He drives her around the island, and the two actually experience the place, while Chris asks the younger man questions about Bergman's personal life, battle with faith, and belief in ghosts following the death of his final, beloved wife. There's a kind of balance in what both characters reveal within these different expeditions.

The eventual narrative, which branches off into a fiction within Hansen-Løve's own fiction and suddenly starts to blur the lines between those stories, could be seen as a riff on Bergman's Persona. In that film, a nurse begins to lose track of reality and herself while caring for an actress (Chris even wears sunglasses worn by one of the film's stars in a photograph in the gift shop). Indeed, Chris is the storyteller here, relating a potential screenplay that clearly has some foundation in her own history. At one point, she takes over the story from her protagonist—or maybe she only does in her own mind.

Before that, though, the story revolves around Amy (Mia Wasikowska), a woman still in love with Joseph (Ander Danielsen Lie), her boyfriend as a teenager—when they were too young for something so serious—and years later—when they were too old for something so youthfully passionate. The two re-unite, after Amy has had a child and Joseph has started seriously dating someone, on the occasion of a mutual friend's wedding, which happens to be on Fårö. Over the three days on the island, Amy finds herself anxious and sleepless, hoping that Joseph might see her the way he used to and want her the way she wants him.

Like Chris, Amy is a filmmaker and a Bergman fan, and there are other similarities. In fact, there are enough of them that we can assume a good deal of this story is based on events from Chris' past. That seems to be the conclusion of Tony, who becomes a bit too distracted and distant as Chris' narration progresses. His reaction, as well as his earlier declaration that he finds inspiration from the women within his own movies (not to mention how he imagines those women, based on a scene from one of those movies and a notebook), speaks as much about him as the gaps in Chris' story say about her.

The direct comparison to that Bergman film is one way we could take Chris' story, but by that point, Hansen-Løve has more or less abandoned Bergman, beyond a few mentions of his name and a climactic trip to his home on Fårö. The film has become hers, inspired, as the filmmakers within this story are, by the location, its history, and whatever personal and philosophical matters need to be revealed by way of art.

The biggest balance of Bergman Island, then, is in that unity. Bergman may have been one of the greats, but on a foundational level, there is no real distinction between his drive and his output than any other artist who dares to look for the truth in what people say, do, and believe. Hansen-Løve does find some truth here, as uncertain as the storyteller and as blurry as the lines of that truth may be.

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