ShareThis"FANNY & ALEXANDER" (1982. RATED R.THE CRITERION COLLECTION. DVD AND BLU-RAY: $59.95)
Ingmar Bergman announced his retirement after making this film in 1982. A family epic, it begins on Christmas 1907 and revisits all the grand Bergman subjects -- God, death, marriage, infidelity, passion -- but in ways that are more generous and less dour than in his previous films.
In this way, it is very much, and in a positive sense, an old man's movie, not nostalgic but full of an appreciation for time's mysteries; and full of understanding, if not forgiveness, for people long gone. It may be Bergman's most accessible film and the easiest way to begin one's Bergman explorations (either this or "Scenes From a Marriage.")
The three-disc set gives us the movie in two versions. The first is the five-hour, 20-minute version made for Swedish television. The second is the theatrical version, which runs three hours, eight minutes. My advice is to watch the theatrical version first, and then, after some time, watch the longer version. To do the reverse might leave you feeling that things are missing.
The generous supplements include Bergman's own documentary about the making of the film, a documentary about Bergman, commentary by Bergman scholar Peter Cowie, a booklet of essays and a 1984 interview with Bergman in which he discussed his retirement from filmmaking.
In fact, he continued to write and to direct TV movies in Sweden. His last TV movie, "Saraband," was made in 2003 and released into American theaters two years later.
(Email Mick LaSalle at mlasalle(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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