A lovely, interesting film, given more meaning by being the third of the three parts that more or less make up the history of Ingmar Bergman's family; starting with the sublime Fanny and Alexander, moving on to The Best Intentions, and then ending with Sunday's Children, which starts in the 1920s, but jumps forward and back to the late 1960s occasionally, where a character named Ingmar is confronting his dying father, from whom he's long felt estranged.
Most of the film focuses on the Ingmar character's childhood, in typical Bergman fashion, capturing the complexities of family life, good and bad, funny and heartbreaking. Also fascinating is that Ingmar Bergman chose his own son, Daniel, to direct this story of Ingmar Bergman's relationship with HIS father.
While there's clearly a certain poetry to that choice, I'm not sure it was the strongest possible one artistically. Unlike Billie August with 'The Best Intentions', Daniel Bergman sometimes seems to just be doing an imitation of his father's style, and that lack of an organic feeling to the film-making keeps this from fully soaring.
But the complexity of seeing the father/son relationship though both a child's eyes, when his father seems like a basically decent man with problems. and his adult perspective on the same behavior as cold and destructive is pretty fascinating.
A complex film I look forward to seeing again.
Most of the film focuses on the Ingmar character's childhood, in typical Bergman fashion, capturing the complexities of family life, good and bad, funny and heartbreaking. Also fascinating is that Ingmar Bergman chose his own son, Daniel, to direct this story of Ingmar Bergman's relationship with HIS father.
While there's clearly a certain poetry to that choice, I'm not sure it was the strongest possible one artistically. Unlike Billie August with 'The Best Intentions', Daniel Bergman sometimes seems to just be doing an imitation of his father's style, and that lack of an organic feeling to the film-making keeps this from fully soaring.
But the complexity of seeing the father/son relationship though both a child's eyes, when his father seems like a basically decent man with problems. and his adult perspective on the same behavior as cold and destructive is pretty fascinating.
A complex film I look forward to seeing again.