Fanny and Alexander (1982)
"Fanny och Alexander" (original title)

Two young Swedish children experience the many comedies and tragedies of their family, the Ekdahls.

Director:

Ingmar Bergman

Writer:

Ingmar Bergman

Stars:

Pernilla Allwin, Bertil Guve, Börje Ahlstedt

Top 250 #211 | Won 4 Oscars. Another 20 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Pernilla Allwin	...	Ekdahlska huset - Fanny Ekdahl
Bertil Guve	...	Ekdahlska huset - Alexander Ekdahl
Börje Ahlstedt	...	Ekdahlska huset - Carl Ekdahl
Allan Edwall	...	Ekdahlska huset - Oscar Ekdahl
Ewa Fröling	...	Ekdahlska huset - Emilie Ekdahl
Gunn Wållgren	...	Ekdahlska huset - Helena Ekdahl (as Gun Wållgren)
Jarl Kulle	...	Ekdahlska huset - Gustav Adolf Ekdahl
Jan Malmsjö	...	Biskopsgården - Bishop Edvard Vergerus
Christina Schollin	...	Ekdahlska huset - Lydia Ekdahl
Kerstin Tidelius	...	Biskopsgården - Henrietta Vergerus
Emelie Werkö	...	Ekdahlska huset - Jenny Ekdahl
Marianne Aminoff	...	Biskopsgården - Blenda Vergérus
Sonya Hedenbratt	...	Ekdahlska huset - Aunt Emma
Svea Holst	...	Ekdahlska huset - Miss Ester
Kristina Adolphson	...	Ekdahlska huset - Siri

Storyline

The title characters are children in the exuberant and colorful Ekdahl household in a Swedish town early in the twentieth century. Their parents, Oscar and Emilie, are the director and the leading lady of the local theatre company. Oscar's mother and brother are its chief patrons. After Oscar's early death, his widow marries the bishop and moves with her children to his austere and forbidding chancery. The children are immediately miserable. The film dramatizes and resolves those conflicts. A sub-plot features Isak, a local Jewish merchant who is the grandmother's lover and whose odd household becomes the children's refuge.

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Plot Keywords:

bishop | jewish | female nudity | puppet theater | family gathering | 

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Taglines:

En film av Ingmar Bergman

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Genres:

Drama | Fantasy | Mystery

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Sweden France West Germany

Language:

Swedish German Yiddish English

Release Date:

17 December 1982 (Sweden)

Also Known As:

Fanny and Alexander

Filming Locations:

Europa Studios, Bromma, Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden

Box Office

Gross:

SEK 21,041,492 (Sweden)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cinematograph AB, Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), Gaumont

Technical Specs

Runtime:

188 min 312 min (director's cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Ingmar Bergman's work diary was released in Sweden in 2006, revealing that the director has huge doubts of himself pulling this big film off. There are constants complain about illnesses, misery and fear he might not finish the movie due to personal concerns.

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Goofs

Among the Christmas decorations in the Ekdahl house, there is a garland of miniature flags of Scandinavian countries, including the Finnish flag. The Finnish flag was in fact only designed and adopted after Finnish independence in 1917, a decade after the events of the film.

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Quotes

Ekdahlska huset - Alexander Ekdahl: If there is a god, then he's a shit, and I'd like to kick him in the butt.
Jacobis hus - Aron: Your theory is very interesting and appears to be justified.

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Connections

Referenced in Broken Embraces (2009)

User Reviews

Could well lay claims to being the best European film of all time

I am not one for putting up idols on pedestals; mostly Bergman's films leave me tepid or even cold. But Fanny och Alexander is a splendid production, beautifully made, so superb it even evokes feelings of having come from a novel. Excellent characterization throughout, all the way down the cast, lending that magic touch to the costuming of the early 1900s. Mesmerising throughout, the film is not a single minute too long. The development of the story-line is superbly handled in an absorbing and coherent manner, manifesting the great empathy between director and actors. If the cinematography is visual poetry, the script is philosophical and full of awareness or consciousness of things in life, but not at a pretentious, abstract and theoretical level, but at a real human dimension.

If you only have 10 videos in your collection, Fanny och Alexander should be one of them. My vote is a bit higher than the IMDb average.

These comments refer to the 3-hour version.