VIFF 2021 REVIEW | "Bergman Island" is a Simmering Summer Interlude
10/12 ForReel Score | 4/5 Stars
Earlier in 2021, when the pandemic and the cold weather were still keeping many of us isolated, the Göteberg Film Festival in Sweden hosted a contest that would offer its winner a one week stay alone in a remote island lighthouse where they could screen the entire festival’s lineup on demand. I was feeling rather sheltered at the time myself, but I was also hitting a stride of sorts in my film writing, so I remember thinking, this sounds like the experience of a lifetime! To be an artist engaged in your solitary practice, and in a rugged but stimulating setting that would be conducive to your exact practice—who wouldn’t want that?
This is the sort of ideal opportunity presented in French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s seventh film, Bergman Island, a film about a married filmmaking couple invited to sojourn on the island of Fårö in the Baltic Sea, where the monolithic Swedish director Ingmar Bergman once filmed his most iconic works. The partners, acerbic but acclaimed writer-director Tony (Tim Roth) and struggling but acutely sensitive writer-director Chris (Vicky Krieps) both aspire to cull inspiration from the hallowed ground, but as we see when Tony partakes in the tourist-friendly “Bergman Safari,” and when Chris plays hooky from the safari to drink cider with a younger filmmaker, both have very different approaches in doing so. Hansen-Løve’s film, less about their marital turmoil and more about the emotional and intellectual terrain they retreat to, is a dramatically subdued affair, but one that reveals a flowering complexity through its multi-layered approach to storytelling and its humane ruminations on the islands we forge for creative fulfillment amongst personal disillusionment.
As the film progresses, we learn that both Tony and Chris have decided to start on writing film projects evoked by and set on Fårö. Tony, on the one hand, writes about “how invisible things circulate within a couple,” whereas Chris sublimates herself within a tale of her twenties—maybe imagined, maybe recalled—in which a proxy for herself, Amy (Mia Wasikowska), pursues an affair with a lover from her teenaged years. It is around Chris’ story that the film quite naturally comes to revolve, the story first being relayed orally to Tony, but later being woven deep into the fabric of Hansen-Løve’s filmic landscape. While a spirit of Bergman can’t be said to loom large in the film, the late director’s methodology that he employed in the 60s—that of using the physical island to serve his own artistic world-building—can certainly be observed in Chris and her creations.
Chris’ story feels rapturously and achingly personal, and while it treads on the worn ground of other coming-of-age stories, it is allowed to soar thanks to Hansen-Løve’s compassionate directing, as well as a truly standout performance from Wasikowska. The wire-framed actor commands a remarkable amount of attention for her limited screen time. And when you consider that not only does she stand-in for Chris, but also for Hansen-Løve herself—who was once married to fellow French director Olivier Assayas — the metatextuality of the film begins to unfold for you in an ever so rich and rewarding way. The role of Chris was originally offered to Hansen-Løve compatriot Greta Gerwig, which surely would have added further layers of intrigue.
There have been some wonderfully reflexive films about writing/directing and the writing/directing process in recent years — VIFF 2020 official selection, Black Bear from Lawrence Michael Levine’s for example — and Bergman Island should be seen as no exception. That said, it should not be seen as a film that paints its creatives in the same cynical manner as some of these previous entrants. Hansen-Løve’s film is a warm film, in part because of Denis Lenoir’s cinematography, which keeps the island of Fårö bathed in beautiful earthy hues, but also because of what is clearly a personal touch from someone who owes an essence of their being to their art. Hansen-Løve is indebted to cinema, but she isn’t intent on crafting a cloying love letter to the medium or honouring the legacy of her film’s namesake. Bergman Island is warm because it is close to the heart, no matter how fraught with conflict or how helplessly impulsive the heart may be. The heart is what helps us navigate our own stories; the heart is an island within the body.
I would still relish the opportunity to hunker down within the confines of a cold-water-and-wind-blasted island bunker to have my own film marathon, but having seen Bergman Island, I can’t help but think that maybe a summer getaway in Sweden wouldn’t be so bad either (provided it’s not during any sort of pagan festival).
