This is yet another Ingmar Bergman masterpiece, even if directed by Bille August. Don't get me wrong: it requires a master director of August's calibre to bring a Bergman screenplay to life as perfectly as it's done here. And so, the "Bille August touch" is pleasantly palpable throughout. Bergman isn't known for displaying themes of social inequality/unrest -- yet they are prominent here in _The Best Intentions_, reminding us of the earlier August masterpiece, _Pelle the Conqueror_.
There are two versions of _The Best Intentions_: a 3-hour movie, and a 5.5-hour TV series. I've only watched the latter twice so far, and I must say I enjoyed the re-watching even more than the original viewing many years ago. I can't imagine many scenes that could legitimately be cut from the 5.5-hour version: everything seems so perfect here. Yes, I found parts 1 and 4 of the TV series the best; the tempo flags a bit in parts 2 and 3; yet even they contain a huge amount of unforgettable moments. I heard, for example, that one of the sequences cut was the grandmother's death -- yet I found it among the best in the entire series.
_The Best Intentions_ can be considered a prequel to _Fanny and Alexander_, and we encounter many of the same characters here -- the "farting uncle" Carl is even played by the same actor, Börje Ahlstedt. Ironically, Ahlstedt plays an *older* Carl in the 1982 _Fanny and Alexander_, while he (visibly physically *older* as an actor) is supposed to be a *younger* Carl in the 1991 _The Best Intentions_. Such details, however, don't matter.
Even though this is a prequel, its tone and topic are very different from _Fanny and Alexander_. _The Best Intentions_ contain no "magical" sequences from the other movie; rather, they excel through stark realism. One could jokingly say: the magic isn't there yet, because Ingmar Bergman isn't yet born -- he can only be indirectly "seen" in his mother's tummy towards the end of _The Best Intentions_. The *perspective* of the two masterful movies is entirely different: whereas _Fanny and Alexander_ looks at the world with the eyes of a growing child (Bergman himself), _The Best Intentions_ are all about Bergman's father and mother: how totally different personalities they are, and yet -- absurdly -- tied together in a marriage.
One can't help thinking that had these two lovers met some 50 or 70 years later, a divorce would have been inevitable early on in the relationship -- especially due to the increased emancipation of women. Yet these are the early 1900s -- and women were expected to put up with their husbands' quirks, stay faithful to them, and suffer. Anna does just that. But _The Best Intentions_ make you ponder the meaning of marriage (and monogamy) itself -- its potential absurdity or impossibility given such two hugely different personalities as Anna and Henrik, married mostly due to an early, unreasonable erotic infatuation with each other.
A sample of Bergman's supreme skills as screenwriter: a conversation between the pastor and factory owner. The scene is 8.5 minutes long and ends with about 15 minutes left to go in part 3. A kitschy screenwriter would have pushed the dialogue towards an open, vitriolic confrontation. Not Bergman! _The Best Intentions_ are, for the most part, about "quiet tones", understated, non-explicit suggestions in the looks or facial expressions of actors, instead of about explicit words and actions. Lennart Hjulström is so convincing as the pastor's opponent, you can't help thinking: here are two guys arguing and hating each other's guts -- but both of them are right in their own way. And that, of course, is always the hallmark of the finest works of art: to show, in a mercilessly *unbiased* manner, that seeming opposites are, in fact, no opposites at all; yet people are too blind to see this, in their day-to-day lives. (Whereas kitschy artists openly *take side* with one of the opponents in a conflict.)
There aren't sufficient words of praise to heap on Samuel Fröler and especially Pernilla August for their performances in the two lead roles. Pernilla's unconventional beauty is stunning; what's more important is the way she can say *volumes* without opening her mouth. A whimper or a toss of her shoulder is all she needs. The way she intones a hesitant or impassioned Swedish "Yes" or "No", is a source of constant delight throughout. The Oscar award for best acting performance is a mockery in that it consistently ignores groundbreaking actors' performances from non-English-spoken movies; it shows the provincialism of the Hollywood Academy Awards, the jurors' prejudice and mental laziness (to read subtitles) -- because both Pernilla August and Samuel Fröler would at *least* have to get Oscar nominations for the joint concerto they give in _The Best Intentions_. (Yes, "technicalities" excluded them from the Oscars.) The supporting cast of actors, many of them veterans of Ingmar Bergman movies, is uniformly superb.
Sweden and other European countries threw tons of money into making the series, and the production values perfection is palpable throughout. The costuming is wonderfully meticulous, recreating the Swedish fashion styles at the (previous) turn of the centuries. There are very nice period-detail glimpses of street scenarios (old Uppsala, Stockholm, etc.).
Finally, one of the series' most striking aspects -- the fabulous score by Stefan Nilsson. Rarely does a score correspond to, and mirror a movie's "spiritual content" as perfectly as Nilsson does here. The music is wonderfully minimalistic, just like the actors' performances here are frequently understated and minimalistic. There are all these "sparing", sometimes barely audible, soft touches on the piano keys -- and that's what _The Best Intentions_ are all about: light play of expressions on the actors' faces, often seemingly unexciting dialogues -- but throughout, with tremendous tension underneath, waiting to explode at any time.
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