Bergman Island

Vicky Krieps in Bergman Island

I don't think I was consciously avoiding Mia Hansen-Love's Bergman Island, though I've enjoyed all I've seen of her previous films, but I was wary of it. As a recovering Bergmaniac, I was deathly afraid that this tale of two partnered filmmakers toiling away at seperate screenplays while on a retreat at Ingmar Bergman's former estate would be Scenes from a Marriage, part deux. Scenes... is a film I respect, but am not eager to revisit. Furthermore, Hansen-Love was the longtime romantic partner of a fellow cinematic genius, Olivier Assayas, and I was not aching to see a roman a clef like Divorce Story, no matter how skillfully told. Instead, I was delighted with the intellectual and emotional vibrancy of the film, Hansen-Love's best yet. A truly cinematic and open-hearted work, Bergman Island ranks among the top films released in 2021.

The film had a tumultuous production history. Lensed over the course of two years, Hansen-Love had great difficulty settling on her two leads. Greta Gerwig, Owen Wilson, and John Turturro were at some point attached to the project, but the director and screenwriter was fortunate to end up with Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth. Krieps' character, Chris, is the main focus of the film and a stand-in for Hansen-Love. The Bergman estate on Faro island is part research lab, museum, tourist trap, and pilgrimage site. Likewise, Hansen-Love contrasts views of Bergman's legacy, be they appreciative, critical, dismissive or humorous. Tim Roth's character, Tony, endures the "Bergman Safari", a bus touring the island. The actual staff of the museum are part of the cast and one describes Scenes from a Marriage as a film that "caused seven million divorces."

Hansen-Love had enough of an obsession with Bergman to make this film, but knows her idol has feet of clay. Bergman had nine children with six women. Like Donald Trump and Genghis Khan, he wanted to spray his seed and fill the world with his progeny, but being a dependable Dad and husband was not on the agenda. Chris points out bluntly that this option is not open to her, especially if she wants to be as prolific an artist as the restless Ingmar. This conundrum and various other domestic quandaries complicates her relationship to Tony. Hansen-Love is perhaps the best director working today in portraying the ebb and flow of  intimate relations. Krieps and Roth play off each other magnificently whether engaged in conflict or sharing moments of beauty and joy amidst the severe beauty of Faro.

That is the difference in this film, Hansen-Love's first masterpiece. The director takes her inspiration from Bergman, but stands on her own as an artist with a unique vision. Bergman used Faro Island to reflect the inner psychology of his tormented or cruel characters. Instead of Bergman's boxy black and white, Hansen-Love opts for color and Cinemascope. This choice greatly increases our appreciation of moments in the film when Chris and Tony quietly revel in the beauty and solitude of the island. The Faro of Bergman Island contains the ghosts of Bergman's oeuvre, but also a broader sense of the island as it exists in the world. Hansen-Love's characters are more in flux, more open to life's variety than those in the deterministic void of Through A Glass Darkly and Persona. 

At the midpoint of Bergman Island, a film within the film is introduced. Chris describes her nearly finished screenplay to Tony and we see it enacted onscreen with Mia Wasikowska as Chris' stand-in, Amy. The up and downs of relationships that Amy experiences mirrors Chris' relationship to Tony and other people she interacts with on the island. By the end of Bergman Island, the line between the artist's personas are as blurred as they are in Bergman's 1966 film. 

The three leads in the film have never been better, and that is saying something, but Hansen-Love handles her non-professionals with equal adroitness. I enjoyed Raphael Hamburger's score and admired the way the director used pop songs, from Lee Hazelwood to The Go-Betweens, to comment on the action and not just exist as an aural backdrop. All in all, Bergman Island is a treat for the mind, eyes, and ears.